


I'm Yours And You're Mine, If You Like It Or Not

by kaspbro



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Dark, Disturbing thoughts, Drug Use, F/M, Implied Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, Sibling Rivalry, THROW HIM IN THE TRASH BOIS!, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, jeremiah being a sexist slutshaming dirt bag, just like the ones that made me write this abomination, not healthy, please this is the most fucked up thing the old terror dome has ever come up with, possible trigger warnings, selina won't get far in this fic whoops, so yall know what you're getting into, the author apologizes in advance, too much cursing for anybody's liking, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-11-12 13:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18011981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaspbro/pseuds/kaspbro
Summary: There was a voice inside Jeremiah's head, screaming, singing Bruce Wayne's voice like a holy mantra.'Bruce Wayne wants us, he needs us, he wants and needs us as much as we want and need him.'





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm bitter that Gotham is ending and I'm even more bitter that the writers don't have the balls to let cameron monaghan to look like the absolute snacc he is. i'm also bitter that there's literally not enough content for me to drown my sorrows in so i guess i'll just have to create it myself.
> 
> AN IMPORTANT NOTE THAT I WISH YOU'LL ALL READ. This story is fucked up. in many levels. it may not always seem like it it, but it is. the prologue should be enough proof. i'm not trying to write this like some sort of edgelord, because quite honestly, i like to make writing and reading fun and easy so i don't want the text to be too heavy, but this story has been written while i'm in a bad place in my life and sometimes when you're in a bad place, you have to let some of the bad out.  
> this is my way of doing it.
> 
> please note that english is not my native language and that i have a severe dyslexia. if you spot typos and grammar mistakes, i would like to be informed about them, thank you.
> 
> also, if anything in this story disturbs you or you just don't like it, I have a simple solution for you - quit reading. there is no need for hateful comments.

**I’m Yours And You’re Mine, If You Like It Or Not**

 

**prologue**

 

 

The first time Jeremiah meets the owner of the Wayne Enterprises, Thomas Wayne, he’s barely six months shy of sixteen and he already has a degree in engineering. The meeting is awkward and almost embarrassing, at least from Jeremiah’s point of view, but Mr Wayne doesn’t seem to notice. He keeps the kind smile on his face and continues to talk, as though it’s not obvious that Jeremiah is sweating through his layers of clothing due to his raging nerves.

 

Jeremiah never had good social skills – he could thank his dear brother on that. He might’ve gotten rid of Jerome nearly ten years ago, but even after leaving the circus he never really got the hang of the way one should act around people. The only person he’s even remotely comfortable is Ecco, and talking to her is almost like talking to a robot sometimes.

 

Jeremiah’s eyes switch between the desk in front of him and Mr Wayne’s forehead. He had been six-years-old when he had learned that looking at a person’s forehead instead of their eyes will create the illusion of eye-contact, especially if you’re more than a feet away from each other. So that’s what Jeremiah does – tries to create the illusion that he’s more comfortable than he actually is.

 

”Are you okay Mr Wilde?” Mr Wayne asked him, his brows furrowing in concern. ”You seem agitated.”

 

Jeremiah shook his head rapidly. ”No, no, everything is fine, I’m just a bit overwhelmed,” Jeremiah said, the last part coming out barely as a whisper, but Mr Wayne had heard it nonetheless.

 

And it was true – Jeremiah was overwhelmed. He was just a teenager, a genius teenager with a degree in engineering sure, but still a teenager and the richest man in the entire city wanted Jeremiah to build him a plaza.

 

Of course he was overwhelmed.

 

There was a distant voice in his head, one he usually succeeded to ignore or keep completely at bay, that told him this was all too good to be true and that he was either dreaming or just about to screw this whole thing up.

 

Mr Wayne smiled at him, the look on his face radiating kindness and warmth and Jeremiah found himself wishing he’d had someone like Thomas Wayne in his life while growing up. ”That’s completely understandable Mr Wilde – after all, you’re not even old enough to drive yet and I’d hate to pressure you into a job that might be too much for you.”

 

”Oh, no, trust me I can handle it,” Jeremiah insisted, rubbing the back of his neck. ”It’s just that I don’t like to leave my safe space.” He was referring to the bunker they were currently in. Jeremiah had been taken aback when Mr Wayne had agreed to go out of his way to meet him here instead of his office where most of his meetings were held. After all, it was a long drive to the woods and Mr Wayne was forced to clear most of his schedule for him…

 

”Yes, I’ve noticed,” Mr Wayne said, still smiling as he looked around the bunker. ”And I have to admit this is very impressive project, especially for somebody your age. It really makes me believe you’re the right person for this job – and don’t worry,you’re able to do most of the work from here if you so wish.”

 

His maze wasn’t fully completed yet – just about a year or so and it would be done. But for now he could only use the bunker and that was fine by him. He doubted Jerome was anywhere near him, if he remembered the course of the circus, they should be somewhere in Florida right now, and Jerome probably didn’t have the money to hunt him down from there.

 

The thing about Thomas Wayne was that he was the first person in Jeremiah’s life who had been truly kind to him. His brother was deranged, his mother had been mostly neglectful and even though Jeremiah cared for her, he wouldn’t deny the truth. His uncle may have given him a way out of the circus, but he couldn’t exactly be counted as a caring man and as soon as he had dropped Jeremiah to St. Ignatius Jeremiah barely heard from him.

 

Jeremiah wasn’t used to being treated like Thomas Wayne treated him, and he knew it was only a matter of time before things got out of hand. Jeremiah just didn’t expect the youngest of the Wayne family to be the one to blame.

 

Jeremiah wasn’t actually supposed to meet the little Bruce Wayne, but apparently their butler had gotten sick that day and had to go see a doctor. On top of that their backup nanny was on a nice little Wayne-funded vacation in Bali, so Mr Wayne had had no other choice than to bring his son with him to his meeting with Jeremiah.

 

Jeremiah wasn’t exactly good with children and he feared that the ten-year-old Bruce Wayne was either way too hyper-active for his own good and would disturb Jeremiah’s concentration or that he was just a bratty, easily agitated, spoiled rich kid who would disturb Jeremiah’s concentration.

 

However, Bruce Wayne was neither of those things, much to Jeremiah’s relief. No, Bruce Wayne was calm, wall-mannered and polite, just like his father. It was almost odd to see a kid that young not acting his age.

 

”I apologize for the inconvenience,” Mr Wayne said with an apologetic smile as he and Bruce entered his bunker, Bruce holding his father’s hand in both of his. ”But Martha had her book club, and she couldn’t bring him there, so-”

 

”It’s fine Mr Wayne, I don’t mind,” Jeremiah said, eyeing the small child warily as the kid looked around the bunker, interest clear in his eyes.

 

”Hello,” Bruce Wayne said to Jeremiah, a wide grin on his face as he gazed up at the teen. ”My name is Bruce Wayne. My father’s told me a lot about you!”

 

Jeremiah turned his gaze down to look at Bruce Wayne for the first time properly. The kid’s dark brown hair was neatly combed to the side and he was wearing a dark grey sweater with some dark pants. His face was littered with small freckles and his eyes were as dark as his hair, like pools of melted dark chocolate that shone in the limited light of Jeremiah’s bunker. His grin let Jeremiah see rows of unbelievably straight and white teeth, and surprisingly he wasn’t missing any, like some kids his age still were.

 

The worst thing was that the ten-year-old Bruce Wayne was _cute_. And yes, one could argue that kids are supposed to be cute. But the thing that unsettled Jeremiah to his core was the fact that Bruce Wayne was cute and not in the way kids are.

 

_Oh wow, you really are sick, aren’t you?_ The voice in his head taunted. _Finding a literal_ child _attractive? That’s fucked up. Completely messed up._

 

”It’s nice to meet you too,” Jeremiah managed to choke out before quickly turning away from the child, hoping that neither of the Wayne’s noticed anything strange in his behavior.

 

Jeremiah did his best to ignore the younger Wayne throughout the meeting. It should’ve been easy – after all, Bruce Wayne was content reading a book quietly in the corner while Mr Wayne went over the ups and downs of the construction of his plaza. The task turned out to be difficult however, as everytime Bruce let out a slight excited gasp over the plot of the book or moved his hair to the side or turned the page or moved at all, Jeremiah’s eyes found their way to look at the kid.

 

”Is he bothering you? If he is, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to wait outside-” Mr Wayne commented suddenly, and Jeremiah found his heart skipping a beat. Fuck. He must’ve noticed the way Jeremiah shifted every time Bruce so much as coughed.

 

_Imagine what Mr Wayne would say if he found out about your little inappropriate thoughts about his son,_ the voice taunted again, as though it was snickering at Jeremiah’s discomfort. _He’d probably have you behind bars. He would likely demand the worst sentence possible – your life would be over. Just like that. All because you’re sick and perverted and fucked in the head._

 

”No, no, not at all” Jeremiah insisted, fixing the position of his glasses nervously. ”He’s not bothering me at all.”

 

_Then again, there’s no harm in_ thinking _. Unless Mr Wayne has some magical mind-reading powers, he’ll never know that you’d loved to see if his son’s skin feels as soft as it looks. Or that you’d love to mess that tidy hair of his or that-_

 

”Are you sure?” Mr Wayne asked, his brows furrowing in concern – it was something that Jeremiah had noticed him doing a lot in his presence. ”You look pale. Are you sick? Do you need to go to a doctor?”

 

”No, Mr Wayne, really I’m fine. I just think I need a glass of water and I’ll be fine.” Jeremiah quickly got up from his chair and marched to the small kitchen he had built into his bunker and made sure the door slid close before leaning against it.

 

He really was sick. Bruce Wayne was _ten-years-old_. Ten fucking years old. What kind of sicko thinks about the softness of a ten-year-old’s skin? Jesus chirst. There really was a line between the things that were wrong with Jeremiah because of Jerome and things that were wrong with him because he was just so fucked up.

 

_But it’s not like you’re an adult either. What’s a five year age gap here and there. It’s technically illegal._

 

Jeremiah took off his glasses and splashed his face with cold water. He really needed that voice to _shut up_ now. It was enough that he had those thoughts to begin with, but to have something in his head _encouraging_ those thoughts? Maybe he should just go confess to the police himself.

 

_And say what exactly? ’Hey I had a dirty thought about a ten-year-old, lock me up officer’. Everybody’s had those thoughts about kids, you should relax a little._

 

The urge to hit his head against the mirror above the kitchen sink was overwhelming, and Jeremiah almost did, but a knock on the door interrupted him before he had the chance.

 

”Mr Wilde, are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been there for quite a while now,” Mr Wayne’s voice rang through the door.

 

”I’m fine, I’ll be just out, if you don’t mind.”

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah didn’t meet Bruce Wayne after that. Slowly the voice in his head stopped taunting him, at least about Bruce, and Jeremiah could go back to living his life the way he had so far. He finished the construction of the Wayne Plaza and didn’t have any contact with Mr Wayne after that. He wasn’t even disappointed – as amazing as it had been to work for the man, it was too risky now. He might slip out the deepest and darkest secret he had and Mr Wayne would just remind him of it. Not having to deal with the Wayne family allowed Jeremiah to make believe that he never had those thoughts to begin with.

 

Jeremiah used his work to get his mind off of the disturbing thoughts and it was an effective way. After he finished the construction of his maze three months earlier than planned, he got a job offering from Meyer and Hayes, which he gladly took. It seemed like he could finally live normally again, or at least as normally as a teenage engineer could live.

 

It was only when the Wayne murders happened that Jeremiah found himself thinking about the family again. It was a shame really – Jeremiah couldn’t pretend like the death of Thomas Wayne didn’t have an impact on him. After all, he had actually liked Mr Wayne. He had been good and kind and pleasant to work with.

 

Bruce Wayne had been the only survivor of the incident. Seeing the kid’s face, now twelve-years-old, on the front page of every newspaper in Gotham was like a hit in the gut for Jerome.

 

And not even for the right reasons.

 

Any normal person would have felt sorrow and pity for the young boy – loosing his parents, being in the scene of the crime, having to watch the life drain out of the two people he loved the most in the world… anyone would be traumatized by that. But those weren’t the first thoughts that came onto Jeremiah’s mind. No, te first thing to pop up in Jeremiah’s messed up head was how pretty Bruce Wayne looked with a tear stained face and the blood of his parents covering his hands.

 

Jeremiah really needed help. Maybe even more so than his brother.


	2. 1. Shakes me like I'm not shaken before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was supposed to go up yesterday but some difficulties occurred and fixing them took me literally five hours. 
> 
> most of this was written in severe sleep deprivation and the best parts were written when i was actually awake.
> 
> also, this is most likely going to be the most boring and tamest of all of the chapters. this is basically just 4x17 and 4x18 told from jeremiah's point of view with a few changes in the end.
> 
> now, i've gotten a lot of comments saying how people feel bad about reading/liking this. And I get it. I feel bad about coming up with this. But like i'm going to repeat now what i've answered to a couple of commentators. 
> 
> YOU ARE ALLOWED TO ENJOY MESSED UP MEDIA. if you like reading really fucked up stories or watching really messed up tv-shows and movies, THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BAD PERSON. In my books, a bad person is the one making these bad things into reality. This is a work of fiction. You are not hurting anybody while reading this (if you are hurting yourself while reading this, please stop, i don't want anybody hurt). I'm not hurting anybody while writing this (Please everybody be aware of your triggers, and I'm saying now, there will be a lot of triggers in this story). enjoying a work of fiction is normal.
> 
> pedophilia and abusive relationships are an everyday issue that our society is fighting against. My intention is not to romanticize either one of those. this is a work of fiction that is not meant to cause harm to anybody. thank you and i hope you'll enjoy the first official chapter, I'll try to update again next week.

 

**Chapter 1**

 

Jeremiah was much more calm than he thought he would be. Jerome had once again escaped from the Arkham Asylum, and undoubtedly he was going to try and get his hands on Jeremiah for the first time in fifteen years.

 

Jeremiah almost scoffed – Jerome’s death had been broadcast on live television for god’s sake, but Jeremiah should’ve guessed that not even death could hold back Jerome. Maybe madness did that to a person.

 

Jeremiah remembered watching Jerome’s death from his small television which he rarely even used. He hadn’t planned on even turning on the television, much less watching a charity gala, but it had coincidentally been broadcast on the channel Jeremiah had last left his television on. So when he had, in his boredom, turned on his television, he had been greeted with the face of none other than Bruce Wayne, who had apparently been picked up as a volunteer.

 

And, well, Jeremiah couldn’t bring himself to turn the show off after that.

 

It had been four years since Jeremiah last saw the Wayne kid – he was around fourteen-years-old and he had grown more than Jeremiah had expected. But he still had the same distinctive features as four years ago – dark, neatly combed hair, pale skin with constellations of freckles and alluring dark eyes. Bruce Wayne was still pretty as ever, even more so now that some of his more childish features had started to fade.

 

Jeremiah had bitten his thumb hard enough to draw blood when he had noticed the way his thoughts were going – he was not following those thoughts, not again. Bruce may have been older, but so was he and even if his thoughts weren’t illegal then, they sure as hell were now that Jeremiah was above the age of consent and Bruce was still years below it.

 

Jeremiah tried hard not to think about that day. The way his brother had held Bruce close, with a knife against his neck, not hard enough to kill, but enough to draw blood. And for some reason, Bruce Wayne’s blood looked better, more red, more delicious than Jeremiah had anticipated. Jeremiah wasn’t squeamish around blood – one of the few perks of growing up with Jerome – but for whatever reason Bruce Wayne’s blood, even through a TV screen had looked tempting.

 

Jeremiah had almost been envious of his brother, for having to get to be so incredibly close to the gorgeous child, close enough to smell and feel his skin, to know his heartbeat and breathing.

 

Luckily it was cut short by the horror of watching his brother being killed on live TV. Jeremiah supposed that he should’ve felt relief, knowing that at last he was safe, at last he didn’t have to fear the inevitable, but truth be told, Jerome was his brother. He was the last piece of family Jeremiah had left and he had calmly watched him die from the other side of the screen.

 

Jeremiah may or may not have had a small panic attack after that, but it was quickly gone. For weeks the newspapers had been littered with nothing but Bruce Wayne and Jeremiah found himself telling Ecco to not bring him aby news papers anymore, because he just couldn’t take the sight of the young billionaire on every single cover.

 

Jeremiah should have known that death wouldn’t have a permanent hold on Jerome. But, being a man of logic and practical science, he never really took the possibility of a miraculous resurection quite seriously. Maybe he should’ve. He had anticipated for Jerome to make a beeline for him, but Jerome wasn’t all that predictable.

 

No, Jerome had first sought out Bruce Wayne and Jeremiah found himself wondering if this was a twin thing. Did Jerome feel the same as Jeremiah did when he looked at Bruce? Or was it that the young boy was just so intriguing and desirable. Perhaps it was both.

 

_Can you believe that that idiot got to him first. The kid is about sixteen now – puberty has most likely hit him already like a prick. Jerome won’t be able to keep his nasty hands to himself – he’ll defile him._

 

Whatever had happened between Jerome and Bruce Wayne during that fateful night when Jerome had managed to cause a city-wide blackout may remain a forever mystery to Jeremiah, but at least his brother didn’t succeed in killing the teenager.

 

Maybe he should’ve – at least that would mark the end of Jeremiah’s unhealthy thoughts.

 

But Jerome had failed and been sent back to Arkham, where he belongs. Unfortunately, now that slippery bastard had managed to get out for the second time. Jeremiah wasn’t afraid though – he had been preparing for this moment for the past fifteen years. Ecco knew what she had to do, were Jerome to ever reach her and after that it was smooth sailing. Jeremiah trusted Ecco to be able to hand Jerome his own ass on a plate – after that Jeremiah wouldn’t have to worry about his brother much. He’d just keep him in the middle of his maze, where it would be near impossible to escape.

 

The ringing of his phone snaps Jeremiah back into present – obviously the caller is Ecco. She is the only one to have his phone number after all. Jeremiah considers not picking up, he knows what the call is about. He picks up the phone anyway, pressing it to his ear, but not saying anything and letting Ecco do all the talking.

 

 

”I’ve got him.” Three simple words and Jeremiah almost smiles. He hangs up the call immediately and spins in his chair, anticipation slowly rising. He wasn’t sure whether it was due to fear or not. He had not seen Jerome in fifteen years, at least not in person. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was treading or looking forward to the reunion.

 

 

”He wasn’t all that hard to knock out,” Ecco said, her voice as monotone as ever and what could almost be a smug smile flashing on her pretty face. Jeremiah had found himself often comparing Ecco to Bruce Wayne. It was no secret that Ecco was very pleasing to the eye. Judging by her outer appearance alone, Ecco resembled one of those mean girls that were always depicted on every teen movie that Jeremiah found boring. She was pretty and blonde and slender and she could’ve easily been one of those obnoxious girls, if she’d had a little bit more… personality.

 

Well, it didn’t matter. Jeremiah didn’t keep her around because she was _pretty_ , he kept her around because she was the only person he trusted and he needed her.

 

Besides, Ecco could be considered the most beautiful creature on the planet and she still couldn’t compete with Bruce Wayne, not to Jeremiah at least.

 

Jeremiah turned on his security cameras, watching as Jerome laid unconscious in the secured room Jeremiah had prepared for him. Ecco had just dropped him off there, leaving the cage outside the bunker. ”Yes, I imagine he wasn’t,” Jeremiah mused, snorting a little in amusement. ”He’s an idiot like that – always thinking nobody can outsmart him. Or maybe he’s just too arrogant for his own good. Well, better for us this way.

 

”How long do you plan on keeping him here?” Ecco asked, tilting her head a little as she too watched Jeremiah’s sleeping twin through the monitos.

 

Jeremiah furrowed his eyebrows. ”As long as possible. Forever hopefully,” he answered, turning around in his chair to face Ecco.

 

”The police will find him. They’re already on your trail,” she said.

 

”I would be disappointed in Gotham’s police department if they weren’t,” Jeremiah shrugged. ”I’m expecting they’ll be here any minute. You should run along now – show them the way in.”

 

Ecco nodded and walked away silently. Jeremiah turned around to face the monitors again, wondering how hard Ecco had hit his brother. Well, no matter how hard she had, Jeremiah imagined he’d be waking up any second now.

 

Jeremiah couldn’t see all of Jerome’s face, but just enough to know that the days of them being perfectly identical was long gone, and the only person to thank was the crazed fan who had cut Jerome’s face off. Honestly, Jeremiah wanted to thank the guy. It had been awful waking up every morning and looking himself in the mirror and seeing Jerome staring back at him.

 

That wasn’t an issue anymore, now was it. No, Jerome’s face was framed by ugly scar tissue and the permanent smile carved into his face wasn’t all that disturbing as it probably should’ve been, In all honesty, that was the most Jerome thing Jeremiah could think of. A permanent smile carved onto his face. Yeah, it didn’t get anymore Jerome than that.

 

When Jerome started waking up again, Jeremiah could feel his nerves waking up in anticipation again. Was he nervous or was he excited? Maybe a little both.

 

Jeremiah watched as Jerome slowly sat up, a raspy sigh leaving his mouth as he did so. The look on Jerome’s face was a mixture of confusion and anger as he looked around the limited space he was in, although it didn’t last long as he started to smile and laugh to himself. The laughter too was oddly raspy and deep, one that was very different of the one Jerome used to have, before his death that was. Well, what could you expect, he had been stabbed in the throat after all. Of course his vocal cords had been damaged in the process.

 

 

”How interesting,” Jerome rasped as he got up from his sitting position. Obviously he tested out the walls, to see if they were solid and if he could get any of them to open up for him. None of the walls budged.

 

Soon Jerome set his eyes on the camera Jeremiah had put into the small room, not even trying to hide it’s presence. Jerome could be stupid, but he wasn’t _that_ stupid. There hadn’t really been a point in trying to hide the camera.

 

”Oh, you are incorrigible,” Jerome said, walking closer to the camera. ”But then again, you always were.”

 

It was odd hearing his brother’s voice speaking to him again. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, but if Jeremiah had it his way, Jerome wouldn’t be anywhere within a twenty mile radius from him. Oh well. This would just have to do.

 

”Oh wait? Or was that me? Sometimes I get so confused, I can’t remember,” Jerome kept talking, his eyes remaining glued to the camera, as though he could see Jeremiah through it.

 

Jerome was laughing again, before he let out a small sigh. ”You didn’t have to run away like that. You see, I would never hurt you Xander.” God, it was so odd hearing his own brother addressing him by his made up name. ”I love you.”

 

If only Jeremiah could believe it. He was glad Jerome didn’t – he wouldn’t want to know what kind of twisted understanding Jerome had of love.

 

 _I’m not sure if yours is any better_ , Jeremiah had been wondering where that little voice had disappeared. He had almost missed it.

 

Jeremiah almost laughed along with Jerome as the maniac made a little heart with his fingers to the camera. ”Can’t wait to see ya! Did you think about me? I know that you did.” Well of course he did. Jerome had been traumatizing Jeremiah since the minute he had popped out of their mother’s womb.

 

_You’re still trying to convince yourself that that’s the truth? Whatever floats your boat._

 

”Oh, I’m gonna squeeze you until you pop!” An alarm sounding made Jeremiah switch off the Jerome-show, at least for a moment. Somebody was approaching outside, and he didn’t have to guess twice who it was.

 

 

Jeremiah told Ecco to let the detectives in before making sure all the monitors were off from his bunker. He couldn’t have the detectives seeing the live-streaming of Jerome – that was a guaranteed way to get himself imprisoned.

 

Besides. It wasn’t like the law-enforcement had actually managed to keep Jerome locked up for all that long. They had let him escape not once, but twice. Jeremiah was obviously the only competent person to make sure Jerome didn’t cause anymore harm in the city.

 

If only the police officers could see it that way.

 

Jeremiah was nervously pacing back and forth in his bunker when he heard the automatic door to his bunker open and Ecco telling the detectives to come on in before walking away. He could already imagine the way the detectives would react to seeing his face – after all, it was the one Jerome was wearing, just a little less damaged.

 

”Thank you for seeing us Mr Wilde,” one of the two detectives, James Gordon if he had heard correctly, said as the door slid back closed.

 

”I expected you might come captain,” Jeremiah said, turning around and immediately having two guns pointed to his face. People were predictable like that.

 

”My God. There’s two of them,” the other detective said as Jeremiah calmly raised his hands up.

 

That should be one sure way to separate Jeremiah from Jerome – Jerome would’ve never so willingly surrendered himself to two cops. But then again, Jerome wasn’t a law-abiding citizen to begin with.

 

”May I put my hands down now, gentlemen?” Jeremiah asked after a few beats and no shots being fired. The two detectives had certainly been thrown off guard – and there really was no blaming them. ”Please?”

 

”Apologies Mr Wilde,” detective Gordon said, skepticism still clear in his eyes as he lowered his weapon. ”You took us by surprise.”

 

”That’s understandable,” Jeremiah said, taking a few steps closer to the detectives. You can call me Jeremiah. That’s the name my mother gave me. You solved her murder Captain Gordon. I owe you a debt of gratitude for that and for putting Jerome in Arkham, where he belongs.” It was strange telling somebody his real name, for the first time since Ecco. But Jerome had already found him, there really was no point in keeping the false name anymore.

 

”He never mentioned you before.”

 

Well that wasn’t a surprise. If the few letters Jeremiah got from his mother were anything to go by, Jerome never forgave him for leaving them. Jeremiah couldn’t really blame him – had their roles been reversed, Jeremiah would’ve been bitter too. He could see Jerome’s point of view, understand it in a way.

 

_And yet, you still judge him for being a homicidal psychopath. Weird._

 

Jeremiah ignored the voice. ”No, I don’t suppose he wouldn’t have. From the letters my mother sent me, he never spoke of me after I left,” Jeremiah confessed.

 

”Left where?” The other detective, _what was his name?_ , asked.

 

”The circus,” Jeremiah admitted. ”They hid me away to protect me from him. See, we were always different, Jerome and I. From an early age, I showed proficiency for maths and desing, and Jerome, mainly the mutilation of alley cats. On my tenth birthday, he held a cake knife to my throat. A few weeks later, he lit my bed on fire. It was like living in a nightmare.” Well, admittedly, that was _entirely_ true. The things didn’t happen precisely like that, but Jeremiah had known Jerome was crazy, even before anybody else had realized it. It was only his brotherly duty to let everyone else see what he saw too.

 

And to be fair, a sappy story about being six-years-old and having to leave your mother behind to be safe from your brother always won some sympathy points.

 

”In my heart I knew one day Jerome would come for me,” Jeremiah said after finishing his little monologue.

 

”Well that day is today, pops,” the other detective, _his name starts with B, his name starts with B_ , said.

 

”We need to move you to a safe location,” Gordon added. ”Until we can apprehend him.”

 

Now would be the perfect time to get rid of the two detectives. ”That won’t be necessary gentlemen,” Jeremiah said quickly. ”I’ve spent the bulk of my life preparing for the eventuality. I’m safest here in my home.”

 

”Not anymore,” Gordon said. ”Jerome knows the name of your proxy, he got it from your boss right before he executed him.” A shame really – Jerome had no real reason to kill the poor man. But then again, he probably couldn’t figure out a good reason to keep him alive either.

 

”I heard about Jerome visiting Allen Heyes. It’s tragic. But the proxy’s name I gave to Allen was a fake.” Jeremiah prided himself being a great liar. He was sure the detectives would drop-

 

”You’re lying.” Well fuck. Guess not then.

 

It was then that things really started to go south for Jeremiah. He really wanted to blame the detectives for luring Jerome’s two criminal friends to his maze, although it had all been his own fault. He had not counted in the possibility of Jerome having fucking allies that would follow him to Jeremiah’s home.

 

Maybe it was slightly a douche move to leave the two men to fend for themselves after Ecco decided to attack them. But then again, neither of them were in a direct danger from Jerome, and Jeremiah was, so it was completely understandable that he’d want to get out of the place as quickly as possible, right?

 

He really hadn’t counted on the fact that Jerome might’ve been able to figure out the maze all by himself.

 

”So, how you been?” Jerome asked, all while laughing that sick laughter of his. ”To think I used to be the handsome one, right?”

 

”How’d you find your way through the maze?” Jeremiah demanded.

 

”Oh, bro, we might not look the same anymore, but we still think the same. Plus you used to draw those things all the time as a kid. I paid attention.”

 

 

Jeremiah found it doubtful that Jerome had the ability to pay attention to anything longer than a minute or two, but decided that he valued his life too much to say it out loud to the madman.

 

”I’ve been waiting for this moment for fifteen years,” Jerome said, chuckling after his two cronies left to find Gordon and his friend. ”Ever since you ran away in the middle of the night like a coward.”

 

 

Jeremiah almost asked Jerome what happened to squeezing him until he popped, but again, he did value his life. ”You’re insane.” At least Jerome agreed with him this time. ”And I tried telling mom but she didn’t want to listen to me. You blame me for everything that’s gone wrong in your life, but truth is Jerome, you were born bad.”

 

”Born bad, huh? So that’s why you made her think I tried to kill you.” Okay maybe Jerome hadn’t actually tried to kill him, not without being provoked anyway. But if provoking Jerome to try and have a go at Jeremiah’s life was what was going to make their mother and everybody else see Jerome’s true nature, then Jeremiah really couldn’t feel bad about doing it.

 

So maybe he had his own part to play in Jerome’s descent to insanity, but he had been right from the start. It really was a shame that their mother had to die for the rest of the world to catch up too.

 

* * *

 

 

Jeremiah found it almost amusing. After Jerome had ran away with his… acquaintances, Gordon and his friend, Bullock, his name is Bullock, promised to place him into a protective custody. And, well, it wasn’t that Jeremiah didn’t think that Gordon was a competent detective, he was the best the city had to offer, but it really did seem like Gordon just really couldn’t deal with Jerome. He had captured him one time, but after that every time Jerome had been caught or killed, it had been all thanks to somebody else, be it Theo Galavan or Bruce Wayne.

 

So yeah, Jeremiah did trust Gordon as a detective, but just not with Jerome.

 

Jeremiah had expected Jerome to try and come for him again, but he had not anticipated it to be so quickly and he definitely hadn’t anticipated Jerome to ask him come to him on his own.

 

And Jeremiah definitely hadn’t anticipated Bruce Wayne to be a part of the deal.

 

Jeremiah had felt his heart jump into his throat after Jerome had muttered Bryce Wayne’s name – it had felt wrong, disgusting, like pollution coming out of Jerome’s disfigured lips, being muttered in that raspy new voice of his. And Jeremiah knew, with a hero-complex quite like Bruce Wayne’s, the boy was likely to show up at the show at any point, join Jerome on the stage and that didn’t feel right in Jeremiah’s guts. His brother being that close to Bruce Wayne, once again, just didn’t sit well with him.

 

Gordon had been strongly against bringing Bruce to Jerome and Jeremiah had been relieved. Of course he knew that negotiating with Jerome was useless but at least he knew Gordon was willing to do anything to keep Bruce away from Jerome.

 

”I watched the news, I know why you’re here Mr Gordon,” Jeremiah said, keeping his back to the trio behind him. He felt like he couldn’t properly get air into his lungs, not with Bruce Wayne standing in the same room as him, for the first time in six years.

 

When Jeremiah had seen Bruce accompanied by the detectives from his monitors, he had almost considered not letting them in. He wasn’t sure if he could function normally, with Bruce Wayne being within six feet from him.

 

The boy had grown quite a bit since the last time he had been on the cover of a news paper. He was tall, lean and his hair was no longer neatly styled to the side like it used to be when he was younger. The freckles on his face were still there, but not as prominent as they were a few years back, and his skin looked shades paler than it probably actually was, with him wearing nothing but black.

 

Bruce Wayne had always been pretty – now he was absolutely ethereal.

 

”And you must be out of your mind to think that I will be led like a lamb to slaughter,” Jeremiah said, finally turning around to face Gordon but doing his best to keep his eyes away from Bruce Wayne. He thought that if he looked at the boy again, he would most likely faint.

 

And that would be very embarrassing.

 

”I understand your concern, but your brother doesn’t bluff,” Gordon explained. ”If we ignore his demands, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

 

”We can block his remote signal with this,” Gordon’s colleague, this time a different fellow, gesturing to a device he was holding, but in all honesty, Jeremiah couldn’t concentrate, not with Bruce Wayne walking and looking around his bunker, an interested look on his face, as though he remembered the room, like he remembered Jeremiah.

 

A part of him wished that he did. A part of him hoped he didn’t.

 

”if you and Bruce can get within a few feet of him, he’ll be a sitting duck. Our snipers will take it from there.” Jeremiah had to scoff at that. Jerome certainly was ignorant and arrogant but he wasn’t completely daft.

 

”Oh for god’s sake Gordon, you have to know what he wants,” Jeremiah scoffed, feeling a tingling in his skin, because Bruce Wayne was right there, behind him. ”To murder us both on live television.”

 

”Mr Valeska,” Bruce Wayne said and Jeremiah wasn’t sure if his heart stopped or if it just started racing so fast he couldn’t feel it anymore. Whichever it was, having Bruce address him for the first time in years almost had Jeremiah falling to his knees and begging Bruce to do it again. But unfortunately, there were other people in the room with him.

 

Jeremiah turned around to look at Bruce, and he realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Bruce Wayne this up close. He was close enough to see the shades of brown in his eyes, there was at least three, close enough to count all of his freckles, and close enough to reach out to see if his skin really was as smooth as it looked.

 

Bruce stared at him curiously for a while, before a small smile appeared on his face. ”I remember you. When you designed the Wayne Plaza,” Bruce said, tilting his head a little. My father always thought very highly of you. It’s a pleasure to meet you again.” And Bruce really had the gall to offer him his hand, and well, Jeremiah wasn’t going to miss out on that opportunity.

 

And yes, his skin was soft, his hands slightly dry and calloused, and his grip was solid, like his father’s had been. ”Likewise,” Jeremiah muttered, and now that he had once set his eyes on Bruce, he really couldn’t look away again. ”I wish the circumstances were better.” If Jeremiah had it his way, he would meet Bruce Wayne with Jerome far out of the picture.

 

”May I ask what it is you’re working on?” Bruce asked him, and as much as Jeremiah enjoyed the sound of his voice, the softness of it when he talked to him, Jeremiah knew Bruce was only asking this to manipulate him. Because Bruce was good at things like that.

 

But who was Jeremiah to deny Bruce anything he wanted. ”Um, yeah,” Jeremiah answered. ”It’s a compact electrical engine. It generates power.”

 

”Fascinating,” Bruce breathed out, and Jeremiah could’ve died peacefully while listening to the soothing tone of his voice. ”How much power?”

 

It was cute really – Bruce acting like he actually cared. Like he was actually interested. Maybe Jeremiah could act too, pretend like he didn’t know that none of Bruce’s words were genuine, like he didn’t know that Bruce Wayne was better at manipulating people into doing what they wanted than anybody in this city.

 

Yeah, Jeremiah could play along and it would get him through a few more years, knowing the way Bruce spoke, the way he pronounced words, the tone he used and the way his lips moved while he did it. ”Just two could light up every building of Westward Bridge.”

 

”You have a brilliant mind,” Bruce told him, while looking him in the eye, and Jeremiah wasn’t sure if he was standing up on his own accords anymore, but he knew that he couldn’t look away. He didn’t want to look away. He wanted to spend the rest of his and Bruce’s life just staring into his eyes. ”And we all hope we can soon be rid of your brother so that you can carry out your work free from fear. I understand if you choose not to help us today. But I trust that Captain Gordon and Mr. Fox will see that no harm comes to me. But even if it does maybe, by facing Jerome I can show the people of Gotham that standing up to terror is the only way to take its power away.”

 

Ah, there it was. And it wasn’t like Jeremiah could say no, not after being indirectly asked by Bruce Wayne. Gordon Jeremiah could say no to – but Jeremiah really was in no position to deny Bruce Wayne anything he wanted.

 

And well, if Bruce wanted Jeremiah to face his brother with him, then he’d have to do just that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jeremiah knew playing Jerome game was a mistake, but he especially begun to regret it the moment he saw his brother set his eyes on Bruce. It was obvious that part of the reason Jerome wanted Bruce there was because Bruce had gotten him locked back in Arkham, but there was that small suspicion that there might be something more to the situation. The way Jerome looked at Bruce was confirmation of it.

 

Perhaps it really was a twin thing.

 

Jeremiah knew Bruce to be brave, as was seen by the determined way Bruce walked towards the stage, not taking his eyes off Jerome. Jeremiah wasn’t feeling as fearless, but soon found out that he wasn’t afraid of what was about to happen to _him_ but rather what was about to happen to _Bruce_.

 

His fear was increased when the inevitable failure of Gordon’s plan occurred and Jerome kept ushering Bruce and Jeremiah to get on the stage.

 

”It’s time to get this party really started, huh?” Jerome laughed as Bruce and Jeremiah finally reached the stage and were immediately forced to wear the bombs around their necks.

 

”You know Bruce,” Jerome mused as he forcefully sat the young billionaire on the other vacant seat. ”Dynamite really is your color. Really brings out that anger in your eyes that I’ve grown to love. What you think bro? Doesn’t Brucie look absolutely delicious with a bomb-collar on?”

 

Jeremiah did his best to look anywhere but Jerome as he leaned uncomfortably close to Bruce’s face with a grin.

 

 _Bruce looks pretty either way, haven’t we gone through that already?_ the voice in his head noted. _Although a collar would suit him just fine. Maybe not a collar that has a bomb attached to it, but a collar either way. Write that down. Oh wait, your hands are tied. Ah, maybe you’ll remember it._

 

”Or maybe just a collar,” Jerome hummed before erupting into a fit of chuckles. It was like Jerome had read his mind.

 

 _Twin thing,_ the voice sang out, and for the first time in his life, Jeremiah noticed how similar the voice was to Jerome’s.

 

It really hadn’t been bad enough that Jeremiah seemed to be hearing disembodied voices in his head, but that voice really had to belong to his deranged psychopath of a brother. How swell.

 

Jerome turned his eyes to look at Jeremiah, who was now sitting on the chair saved for him, and a large grin appeared on his mouth. ” _Oh brother_ ,” Jerome breathed out nastily. ”You see it too, don’t you. This must be a twin thing.”

 

Jeremiah bit his lip and kept his eyes trained on the crowd of terrified people. He did his best to push down the heat that was beginning to rise onto his cheeks – blushing would most definitely sell him away and that was the last thing he needed in this situation.

 

”As wonderful as threesomes might be, I don’t think one with my own twin brother sounds too fun, at least for Bruce,” Jerome cackled. ”I guess we’re just going to have to fight to death for the heart of the Prince of Gotham. Winner gets a kiss and to decide what color the collar should be. I’m voting red.”

 

Jerome moved to stand in front of Jeremiah and waved his pocket knife in front of his face. He then proceeded to cut Jeremiah’s hands loose and handed him the knife. ”Go on,” he encouraged. ”Take your best shot.”

 

It didn’t take an idiot to figure out that this was a trap. But Jeremiah had fifteen years of pent up anger towards his brother and the opportunity to let it all out presented itself.

 

So why not?

 

When Jeremiah’s attempt on Jerome’s life failed, the older of the twin cackled more. Jerome pushed Jeremiah down and begun kicking him like he was a football. ”Kind of disappointing, I must say,” Jerome said with a kick onto Jeremiah’s ribs. ”I guess I’m the one getting the kiss then.

 

”Aw, what’s the matter Brucie?” Jerome asked as he turned his head to look at Bruce. ”Doesn’t kiss from me sound like all your wildest dreams come true? Or would you rather kiss my pathetic excuse of a brother?”

 

”Funny enough, I think I’d rather,” Bruce snapped and as a result Jerome kicked Jeremiah two times, a little harder than the last time. ”You made your point, stop that now.”

 

Surprisingly, Jerome stopped, but not without letting out a loud laugh. ”Awe you pwotecting him bwucie?” Jerome asked in a baby voice, wearing a matching pout on his lips.

 

It was then that gunshots could be heard firing in the rooftops and Jerome’s attention shifting from the show to the sounds – something had not gone according to his plans and that resulted in all hell breaking loose. All in a matter of minutes, Gordon managed to shoot Jerome in the shoulder, before that slippery bastard escaped like a coward, Bruce got out of the chair he was tied to and freed the rest of the captives, all while the crowd of people were even more panicked as they pointed up to the sky where a white blimp was approaching them.

 

”Are you alright?” Bruce ran up to Jeremiah and took a hold of his arm to help him up.

 

A series of tingles ran up from the spot which Bruce had touched, even through Jeremiah’s layers of clothing. ”Yes, I’m fine,” he breathed out, shocked that he managed to utter even those three words, with Bruce standing so incredibly close to him.

 

”Are you sure? He kicked you pretty hard,” Bruce’s brows furrowed in concern in a way that reminded Jeremiah of his late father.

 

”Yes, I’m fine,” Jeremiah nodded, breathing heavily. ”Are you? I mean, I guess all that really counts as sexual harassment...”

 

_Oh you’re one to talk. Jacking off to pictures of a twelve-year-old in a news paper, now that’s sexual harassment._

 

”Oh it wouldn’t be the first-” Bruce’s sentence was cut short by a loud crash and a car’s alarms going off. For a second it seemed like the entire Gotham had quieted down to see what had happened.

 

From his place on the stage Jeremiah couldn’t see properly, but he swore on one of the alleyways there was a dead body, one with fiery red hair, laying still on top of a ruined car.

 

 


	3. 2. Does the body rule the mind or the mind rule the body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so pleased with myself, wow. usually a little over 1,000 words is too much for me to write for one chapter, but here I am, with nearly 5,000 words.
> 
> Honestly this chapter was so fun and so easy to write and for the first time ever I'm satisfied with the first draft! so yall better be thankful

**Chapter 2**

 

 

Jeremiah had been sitting on the floor of his bunker for three hours now, the purple box laying a few feet away from him. The air felt foggy and thick, and it didn’t fill his lungs fast enough and it made Jeremiah’s head dizzy.

 

Jerome had just died that day, and Jeremiah had been sure he would be rid of his brother completely now that he was finally gone. There was no way somebody could be resurrected twice. Yet, there it was, Jerome’s voice filling the space, mocking and taunting him, reminding him that there was no way Jeremiah was ever going to be completely free of his brother.

 

After the gas had hit Jeremiah’s face the voice in his head had started banging and pushing, like it was trying to fight its way out. It was screaming and laughing and it was taking over all the space in his head, leaving no room for rational thinking. He couldn’t make out clearly the jumbled sentences, but he could make out a few key words that appeared in almost every sentence.

 

_Bomb, Bruce Wayne, bomb, Bruce Wayne, destroy Gotham, Bruce Wayne, bomb, bomb, bomb, destroy, destroy, build, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne._

 

There was nothing Jeremiah could do to drown out the deafening noise in his head. It had gone on for hours and hours, and Jeremiah was fairly sure that Ecco had called him at some point but he hadn’t reached for the phone. If that was the case, she should be soon arriving to check if he’s okay.

 

Maybe he should call Ecco – he really didn’t want to deal with her or anybody right now.

 

_Bruce Wayne, we want to deal with Bruce Wayne. We want, we need, we crave his presence._

 

Jeremiah wasn’t sure when _you_ turned into _we_. All he knew was that the voice in his head was no longer addressing him specifically, but speaking as though it and Jeremiah had same needs, dreams and desires.

 

Jeremiah slowly and carefully lifted himself off the ground when he heard his phone ring – this time he actually heard it. His legs felt shaky and Jeremiah had to lean onto the table next to him to make sure he didn’t fall down.

 

It wasn’t Ecco calling him, but that was impossible – Ecco was the only one who had his phone number. Unless Ecco gave it to somebody – which she would never do – it was impossible for anybody to call him.

 

With shaky hands and unsteady breathing, Jeremiah pressed the button and brought the phone to his ear. ”Hello?” he asked quietly, less scared than he would’ve been just a few days ago.

 

”Hello, is this Jeremiah Valeska speaking?” Bruce Wayne’s soft and serious voice rang through the other end of the line, making Jeremiah’s heart jump into his throat before falling down back to his chest and beating rapidly, like it was trying to escape his rib-cage and run to the teenager on to other end of the line. ”This is Bruce Wayne. I would like to speak about the grant I offered you.”

 

Jeremiah had nearly forgotten about that – well, not exactly. It was still the first thing on his mind as he was opening the present he had thought Bruce had sent him, but the thought had left his mind the second he heard Jerome’s voice ringing in the air again.

 

”Oh, yes of course. I nearly forgot,” Jeremiah said with a little chuckle, his nerves easing up before gearing up again with something else. This time his nerves weren’t on fire because of worry or fear but due to excitement and anticipation.

 

”I hope you don’t mind that I annoyed your assistant until she gave me your number,” Bruce said, the seriousness in his voice switching into a delighted chuckle, which was like a siren song to Jeremiah’s ears. He almost begged for Bruce to let out that sound again, just one more time so he could be sure he won’t forget it and can fall asleep every night with that sound as his last thought.

 

”I can only imagine how long that took,” Jeremiah hummed with a smile.

 

”A lot longer than one would expect – she’s quite tough to crack,” Bruce agreed. ”But back to business – I’d rather discuss the grant in person than on the phone. I don’t particularly like phone calls. Are you free sometime this week? You could come here and we’ll discuss the matters over a dinner.”

 

The rabid beat of Jeremiah’s heart suddenly ceased. His heart stopped beating completely, his lungs emptied themselves of all the air they had managed to collect, as if somebody had punched Jeremiah in his gut. His ears started ringing and he was sure he was seeing small black spots.

 

Bruce was inviting him into his home. He was inviting him to dinner. In his home. Where there was nobody but Bruce and his butler at all times.

 

_Bruce Wayne wants us, he needs us, he wants and needs us as much as we want and need him._

 

”Yeah, yes, umh, I’d like that,” Jeremiah said, shocked at himself for being able to get a word out of his mouth.

 

”Is Friday okay for you?” Bruce asked, and Jeremiah was sure he could hear a smile in his voice.

 

”Friday is perfect.”

 

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t until two days later when Jeremiah woke up that everything started to make sense to him. The voice in his head didn’t feel so foreign anymore. After waking up that morning, Jeremiah could finally _see_.

 

Everything was more bright and radiant after he woke up. Every color in his little bunker was more saturated, brighter, more eye-catching. It felt like Jeremiah had been blind his whole life and he was experiencing colors for the first time.

 

With the colors came the bigger picture. The voice in his head didn’t sound so crazy after he really started seeing things like they were, like they were meant to be like, like he was going to make them to be.

 

_Bomb, Bruce Wayne, bomb, Bruce Wayne, destroy Gotham, Bruce Wayne, bomb, bomb, bomb, destroy, destroy, build, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne._

 

The words made sense to him now – now the words weren’t just something the voice in his head, the Jerome in his head, was saying, but they was something Jeremiah himself was thinking and drawing on paper, ready to recreate to the real world above him.

 

It was brilliant, it was genius and it was the embodiment of sanity.

 

”What do you need all of these for?” Ecco asked him, raising one perfect eyebrow at him. ”I thought the Wayne enterprises were going to fund your work from now on. Why do I need to get these?”

 

”I liked it better when you didn’t ask so many questions,” Jeremiah told her, his voice laced with more confidence than ever, yet sounding more monotone than before. ”But if you must know, I need them for a personal project. One I do not plan to share with anybody for a while.

 

If Ecco was taken aback by his sudden attitude, she sure didn’t show it. ”Not to be rude,” she said. ”But you only ever needed me because you didn’t want to risk getting found by your brother. He’s dead now, and for good this time. So why do you still need me.”

 

”Simple really – I don’t,” Jeremiah answered, a cold smile appearing on his face as he looked at Ecco. She was expendable. Replaceable. But she was there, so what’s the point in finding someone else. ”But since you’re here and you don’t seem to be in a hurry anywhere, you might as well help me. Oh, and while you’re getting those, you probably don’t mind picking out some make up for me to cover up you know, all of this.” Jeremiah gestured to his face

 

Ecco didn’t say anything after that. Just stuffed the list Jeremiah gave her into her coat pocket and left him alone into his bunker again.

 

”Hope she didn’t get too offended,” he said to nobody in particular, except maybe to the voice laughing in his head.

 

_She’s boring. No fun at all. You know who’s not boring?_

 

”Bruce Wayne,” Jeremiah answered the question with a sigh.

 

Jeremiah took a glance at himself in the mirror in the bunker. He only had one in the place, never having been one for vanity. Since the gas had hit his face, some unfortunate cosmetic changes had occurred. Well, what would one expect from an obviously flawed chemical component made by a loony from an asylum.

 

His skin had always been pale, but now it was straight up white. His previously brown eyes had changed too – they were completely colorless, not exactly grey but not exactly white either. They looked odd in the mirror, like they didn’t belong in his face.

 

The biggest change and the most difficult to fix was his hair. He wasn’t sure what exactly the crazies had put into the toxic gas he had been sprayed with, but the last thing he had expected was for it to make his hair go green. Oh well – what did it matter anyway. It wasn’t like Bruce Wayne was going to fall in love with him because of his strikingly good looks. No, he was going to fall in love with him because they were meant to be together. And Bruce was going to see that.

 

Preferably on Friday. But Jeremiah was willing to wait.

 

* * *

 

”Oh, Ecco you truly have outdone yourself,” Jeremiah grinned as Ecco dropped the bag filled with make up, prescription-less glasses and dark brown contact-lenses onto the table.

 

”What about the hair?” Ecco asked, glancing quickly at the top of Jeremiah’s head.

 

”What _about_ my hair?” Jeremiah replied.

 

Ecco rolled her eyes and sighed. ”The makeup and contact-lenses can cover up your face, but I think Bruce Wayne will question the odd decision to dye your hair green out of the blue.”

 

”Mmm, you make a valid point,” Jeremiah agreed. ”For once.”

 

”You know you should consider being nicer to the one person who has devoted their entire life to you and has sacrificed everything in their life to make sure you can live in peace,” Ecco said, her tone calm but sounding like she really wanted to snap at him.

 

”You’re free to leave anytime,” Jeremiah answered, not turning around to look at her. ”After all, it’s like you said – Jerome is gone for good now.”

 

Jeremiah half expected her to leave and never come back. And for a while it seemed like she was going to. But she didn’t – no, Ecco stood still, as though waiting for him to tell her what to do next.

 

”Would you prefer a wig or some hair-dye?” Ecco asked.

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah took a look at himself from the mirror and was pleased what he saw – the only people who could probably see the difference would be him and Ecco. The shade of the foundation he was using was a shade too dark to be his original skin and the color of the wig he was wearing was just a tad too ginger – after all, Jeremiah’s hair had always been slightly closer to brown than Jerome’s.

 

But no matter. Bruce Wayne had met him one time in his life, there was now way he was going to notice any difference. And if he did, what difference would it make? Jeremiah was going to reveal the truth to him anyway, all in due time of course.

 

Bruce obviously had to trust him, love him, _need_ him before any of that could happen.

 

”Do I need to call you a cab to take you to the Wayne manor or would you like me to drive you?” Ecco asked, more stoic than usual as she studied Jeremiah with a blank expression.

 

”If you don’t mind driving me, it would be highly appreciated,” Jeremiah said with a small grin. ”Well? How do I look?”

 

Ecco stared at him for a moment. ”Good enough, I suppose. I can still see the difference,” she said.

 

”Of course you can,” Jeremiah said, rolling his eyes. ”The point is for Bruce to not notice any difference.”

 

”Well in that case, I doubt he will,” she nodded. ”Shall we get going then?”

 

The car ride was mostly quiet, the only sound coming from the quiet hum of the radio. Jeremiah didn’t recognize the song playing, considering that he rarely listened to music and when he did it was mostly classical and one that helped concentration.

 

It wasn’t too long of a ride from Jeremiah’s bunker to the Wayne manor – in just about fifteen minutes the gates to the giant estate Bruce Wayne had lived in his whole life came into view and Jeremiah could feel his heartbeat accelerate in anticipation.

 

_That’s where he lives. Where he eats, where he sleeps, where he undresses, where he’s the most vulnerable._

 

Jeremiah couldn’t help his excitement. Getting to see the space in which Bruce spent most of his time made his mind and heart turn in ways he had never felt before. Now he could finally place his vivid daydreams into a clear setting and not in a random location.

 

The gate opened automatically upon their arrival – a little too trusty, Bruce was. There was always a chance it wasn’t Jeremiah who was in the car that approached the huge building. Who knows what kind of sickos were ready to break into his lavish home and carve his heart out of his chest.

 

But Bruce wouldn’t have to worry about that. Not anymore. Not when Jeremiah was there to make sure nobody but him was ever going to see the exact shade of his blood.

 

”Will you text me when you want me to pick you up?” Ecco asked as she stopped the car in front of the entrance to the manor.

 

Jeremiah nodded. ”You’re really bright, you know – figuring out complicated things like that all on your own.”

 

”Again, you might want to consider your behavior towards the people who have committed their life to you.”

 

”And maybe you should’ve thought it through first,” Jeremiah answered, before climbing out of Ecco’s car and walking up the steps leading to the front door. The last thing he heard before ringing the door bell was Ecco restarting the engine and driving off.

 

It was almost funny when she pretended to be mad at him.

 

It didn’t take long for the front door to open and reveal a greying man in a nice looking west smiling lightly at him. Jeremiah had half expected, and hoped, Bruce to be the one to open the door for him, but he supposed it was his butler’s job to do so.

 

”Ah, master Valeska, we meet at last,” the butler said moving aside so Jeremiah could get in. ”I’m Alfred Pennyworth, master Bruce’s butler and guardian.

 

Jeremiah smiled at the man. ”Yes, I know,” Jeremiah said, finding it surprisingly difficult to act like his old self. ”You know, Bruce is in a lot of newspapers and you’re almost always mentioned so...”

 

”Yes, yes, of course, of course,” the man said with his thick British accent. ”Here, let me take your coat. Bruce is currently in the study finishing up some papers, but he’ll be down in a short while. Make yourself at home, feel free to look around.” Alfred went to take Jeremiah’s jacket somewhere while Jeremiah did his best to take the whole place in.

 

It was impossible of course. He imagined it would take hours to really take in every delicate detail of the Wayne manor, and Jeremiah fully intended to do just that. He wanted to know every single element of Bruce’s home as well as Bruce did himself.

 

Most of the color palette of the manor was warm and brown – it was comfortable and soothing and the manor was overall very warm and pleasant to be in. There were a lot of paintings and portraits hanging from the walls, of ancestors and relatives, but also many family pictures, looking as though they were taken with a regular camera on a fairly regular day.

 

Jeremiah moved away from the front door and soon found himself in what he would call a living room. At least he assumed it was one, considering the large soft looking leather couch, big coffee table with a vase full of flowers and the enormous bookshelves lining up the walls. The living room too was filled with paintings and family portraits and Jeremiah found himself drawn to one particular photo of Bruce, on what seemed to be his birthday. He was wearing a golden crown made out of paper and was smiling wide with a few of his teeth missing, a huge birthday cake in front of him. There was ten candles lit on top of the cake.

 

It meant that it was taken during the time Jeremiah was working for Thomas Wayne.

 

Jeremiah almost took the picture out of its frame and put it in his pocket, but a voice coming up from behind him stopped his movements.

 

”That’s a horrible picture,” Bruce Wayne said, making Jeremiah quickly turn around to face the teenager. ”I’m missing almost half of my teeth – you wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to eat that cake.”

 

Jeremiah was once again taken aback by the sheer beauty of what was Bruce Wayne. His hair was styled back messily, letting some of his natural curls and waves do their own thing and still look incredibly good and neat. Jeremiah supposed Bruce had a fair share of product making sure his hair stayed in it’s place, but it still looked so incredibly soft that Jeremiah almost marched up to the boy and ran his fingers through the strands before pulling them.

 

Jeremiah had always found contrasts beautiful – and Bruce’s dark hair, dark lashes and dark, so incredibly dark, eyes made his already creamy skin look paler than it actually was. That combined with the fact that Bruce seemed to have a preference for darker clothes made Jeremiah’s mouth water in a way that made him feel like he would be never satisfied unless he was able to devour the young billionaire whole right then and there.

 

”I can imagine,” Jeremiah said and bit his lip to stop himself from letting out that hungry sigh he was holding in.

 

He wasn’t even hungry for food.

 

Bruce always looked incredibly good, Jeremiah had discovered. And right now, with his dark knitted turtleneck sweater – he was always wearing turtlenecks, why, Jeremiah wanted to see his throat god damn it – with dark khaki pants and Jeremiah wanted nothing more than to cut through the undoubtedly expensive clothes, because as good as Bruce looked in the clothes ( _he looks so good, so good, so good, just for us_ ), Jeremiah was sure he looked even better without them.

 

_We have a switchblade in the pocket of the vest, we could use it, use it right now, just to see if his skin is as smooth under his clothes as it is on his face._

 

”Are you okay?” Bruce asked, taking a few steps closer and Jeremiah could smell him already. A wonderful mix of old books, fresh sheets, vanilla and an expensive cologne of some sort. All Jeremiah’s favorite things. ”You have a strange look on your face.”

 

”Just hungry I guess,” Jeremiah answered, slightly too quickly to be completely believable, but Bruce took the bait anyway and smiled widely.

 

”Well it’s good Alfred’s already done with dinner then. Hope you like Italian.”

 

”Oh, I love Italian.”  


* * *

 

Even though Jeremiah wasn’t particularly hungry, he couldn’t deny that Bruce’s butler really did know how to cook. Besides, it would’ve been rude to not eat when he had been invited over for a dinner.

 

As good as the food was, Jeremiah found himself more captivated by Bruce and his mouth during the entire meal. Bruce, being raised by upper-classmen, was a very neat eater, and never put too much food into his mouth on one go and never spoke while he had food in his mouth. He also chewed and ate very slowly and calmly, like he was trying to keep it a secret that he was consuming food.

 

It must’ve been the first time in the history of everything that somebody was so enthralled by another person’s way of eating.

 

”Hope you enjoyed the meal master Jeremiah,” the butler, Alfred, said with a smile after he and Bruce were finished.

 

”It was delicious thank you,” Jeremiah said politely, doing his best to keep his socially awkward persona up. ”And there’s really no need to call me master.”

 

”I’ve been telling him that for years – just won’t listen,” Bruce said, rolling his eyes light-heartedly, while trying to held Alfred to put the dishes away, only to have his hands slapped away. ”Hey!”

 

”You two have important business to discuss master B, so allow me to do my job, please,” Alfred told Bruce,

 

Bruce’s eyes widened a little. ”Right! I almost forgot about that part,” Bruce turned to smile at Jeremiah. ”Come – I think we should go talk in the study.”

 

Bruce gave Jeremiah a small tour of the manor while they made their way into Thomas Wayne’s old study. Jeremiah had to refrain from asking Bruce to not go so fast, so he could really consume every detail, to feel every surface so he’d never forget it. When Bruce gestured to a closed door on one of the hallways and told him it was his own bedroom, Jeremiah almost jumped to the chance to see it. But he didn’t want to cross any boundaries – as much as he’d love to see and experience Bruce’s bedroom in first hand, just to fuel his dreams a little, he was willing to respect Bruce’s privacy, just this once. He was going to get inside the closed door one day, the sooner the better.

 

Going through the paper work and contracts that came with getting to work to the Wayne enterprises had been incredibly dull when he had to do it with Thomas Wayne, but with Bruce Jeremiah could’ve spend hours upon hours just listening to Bruce’s soft voice going through all the items in the contracts. They used the base of the contract Jeremiah had made with Bruce’s father, but modified it to work for present day.

 

”Jeremiah, your phone is ringing in your coat pocket,” Alfred peaked is head inside the study from the door. ”It seems to be a woman named Ecco – isn’t she your assistant.”

 

Jeremiah blinked a few times. ”Yes, but we agreed I’d call her-” Jeremiah glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed it was closing in on midnight fast. ”Oh, it’s that late already. She promised she’d pick me up, I’m guessing she wants to get to bed too today.”

 

Bruce seemed to be as taken aback by the time as Jeremiah. ”Well it’s good that we’re almost done anyway,” Bruce hummed. ”Damn, time goes really fast. You can tell your assistant you’re staying in our guest room tonight.” Jeremiah had to do a double take after hearing those words come out of Bruce’s lips. Oh, it was like a dream come true. Staying the night, so incredibly close to Bruce, Jeremiah doubted he would get even a blink of sleep that night.

 

But he really was in no position to say no. After all, if Bruce Wayne wanted something, Jeremiah was going to go out of his way to get it to him. And if Bruce wanted him to stay the night, he really had no choice but to do so.

 

* * *

 

The guest room just had to be the one next to Bruce’s own bedroom. That was one sure way to make sure Jeremiah wouldn’t sleep at all that night.

 

The bed was the most comfortable he had ever laid on. The pillow was big and soft and just the way he liked it. The blanket was thick and incredibly large and Jeremiah supposed he should’ve been the most relaxed he ever was, but he couldn’t be more uncomfortable. Not with the aching in every single limb in his body, not with the burn in his skin.

 

Just the knowledge that he could walk out that door, take two steps to the right and find Bruce Wayne asleep, vulnerable, as though he was waiting for him was enough to set Jeremiah on fire.

 

He knew he shouldn’t – but he wasn’t sure when this opportunity would present itself again, and it could take days, weeks, even months if he was unlucky and Jeremiah couldn’t take that chance.

 

It was a quarter past two o’clock in the morning and even through the thick walls of the manor, Jeremiah was sure he could hear the soft hum of Bruce’s breathing. Slowly, trying to avoid any sounds, Jeremiah got up from the bed and tiptoed to the door, carefully opening it before stopping in front of the door to Bruce’s room.

 

His heart was beating erratically – if it was really going to escape his chest, Jeremiah was sure the moment was now. With a deep breath, Jeremiah put his hand onto the handle and opened the door, making sure there was no creaks.

 

Jeremiah’s breathing stopped when he saw the sight.

 

Bruce’s room was as enormous as Jeremiah had expected it to be, but exploring it would have to wait for another time. Right now all fo Jeremiah’s attention was stolen by the sight of the sleeping Bruce Wayne. The light of the stars and the not yet full moon illuminated the room just enough for Bruce’s pale skin to appear as though it was glowing, again contrasted by the black t-shirt Bruce was sleeping in. He was hugging one of the pillows on his king sized bed and his dark hair was messily going every which way, as though he had really tossed and turned before finally calming down to a peaceful slumber. His pink lips were open just the tiniest bit as he breathed calmly through them and Jeremiah found his legs taking complete autonomy as he walked closer to the sleeping beauty.

 

A week ago he would’ve screamed at himself to walk away, turn away, never come back to the Wayne manor. But that was a week ago, that was before Jeremiah had opened his eyes to see the world like it really was.

 

Slowly and carefully, doing his best to not stir the sleeping boy, Jeremiah slipped in to lay next to Bruce and look at his face for the first time up close. Finally he was close enough to count all the freckles on his creamy skin ( _68 on his face, probably more elsewhere_ ), close enough to feel the texture of his skin ( _smooth like the finest silk, soft like the paw of a kitten_ ), close enough to really decide what shade of pink his lips actually were ( _a perfect mixture of both rose and peach_ ) and finally he was close enough to really run his fingers through those dark, dark, _dark_ locks of hair ( _would he woke up if we pulled?_ ).

 

Jeremiah decided to not test his limits, but instead just ran his fingers through Bruce’s dark hair, before slowly creeping closer to be able to smell.

 

_Strawberry and chocolate, a perfect mix for a perfect boy._

 

Leaning back, Jeremiah dropped his hands from Bruce’s hair and managing to make Bruce let out a quiet, soft whine, and oh that was dangerous. If he kept doing that Jeremiah’s self control was going to run out, and fast.

 

Miraculously, he did have some control left, and he ran his fingers down Bruce’s face, down his cheek, and to his neck, before gripping it lightly, not putting any pressure in, but imagining what it would be like. Of course he would never fully cut off Bruce’s breathing, he would never want to cause any harm to Bruce, but there was nothing wrong with just lightly squeezing. Bruce would probably enjoy that. Jeremiah would most likely enjoy that.

 

Even the thought was enough to- again, this was dangerous. But danger was fun, Jeremiah had just recently found.

 

He moved his finger back up from the column of Bruce’s throat and to his lips. In an ideal world Jeremiah would’ve been able to cover to perfect lips with his own, but in an ideal world Bruce would be awake and willing and as enthusiastic and Jeremiah. So Jeremiah settled for pushing few of his fingers in Bruce’s mouth, feeling every corner, both rows of flawless white teeth before pulling them out again and putting them into his own mouth. It was only a poor, not very telling imitation of what Bruce tasted like, but Jeremiah could distinguish the toothpaste Bruce had used that night and something unique, something very incredibly _Bruce-like_.

 

He probably should leave the bed before morning. He probably shouldn’t be there when Bruce woke up. But a few more moments wouldn’t hurt anybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if we're lucky i'll update again by tuesday


	4. 3. and if I seem a little strange that's because I am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told ya'll that i'd update by tuesday and here the hoe is, can you believe
> 
> this chapter is like only slightly shorter than the previous two, but it was fun to write. 
> 
> also, trigger warning (?) for slut shaming, even though that's all in jeremiah's mind

**Chapter 3**

 

 

As difficult as it had been, Jeremiah had managed to leave Bruce’s room just moments before sunrise. He would’ve given anything to be able to spend the rest of his life there, in the same bed with the boy who had been keeping his heart and mind captive for nearly seven years now.

 

Jeremiah could safely say that he didn’t catch a glimpse of sleep that night. With his heart beating faster than a race-car and the most painful hard-on he had ever experienced in his life, he had found extremely hard to close his eyes and drift off. It didn’t matter – he would gladly stay awake with the thoughts of dark soft curls and smooth pale skin.

 

He could survive with no sleep – he had functioned just fine with only two to four hours of sleep a night for the past fifteen years. One sleepless night wasn’t going to destroy him.

 

Jeremiah lifted his fingers to his lips, the same ones that had touched Bruce the night before. He was sure he could still smell the younger boy’s distinctive scent, and almost contemplated on never washing his pale white skin again, just to make sure the feel of Bruce would stay as long as possible.

 

A knock on the door made Jeremiah sit up abruptly in the bed, and quickly take a look at himself in the mirror across the room. Most of the foundation had stayed in it’s place, but he knew he would have to put on another layer, just in case.

 

”Master Jeremiah, breakfast is ready,” the voice of Alfred Pennyworth came from the other side of the door, and thankfully the butler didn’t bother to open the door. Jeremiah didn’t even have time to answer the older man, before he heard him walking away.

 

Jeremiah quickly pulled the foundation bottle from the bag he had brought along with him. He knew the gun he had hidden in there was useless, after all Bruce was the last person he intended to hurt, but one could never know what challenges life throws at them.

 

After reapplying the foundation on, Jeremiah took out the contact-lenses he had taken off the night before. They hurt his eyes just the slightest amount, but knowing that soon he would have Bruce’s full trust and after that he wouldn’t have to wear them ever again, made it all worth it.

 

Jeremiah rarely ever ate anything in the mornings, but it would be rude for a guest to not attend a breakfast he was invited to. And Jeremiah did intend to be a good guest.

 

After placing the faux glasses onto his face, Jeremiah made his way down to the kitchen, feeling his heartbeat rise in anticipation once again. He heard the voice in his head chanting Bruce’s name like a sacred mantra.

 

Just before Jeremiah was about to enter the kitchen, he stopped dead on his tracks when he heard not two but _three_ voices coming from the room. A seething feeling rose up in Jeremiah’s chest when he realized that the third voice, the most unfamiliar one, was a girl’s voice. A high-pitched all around bitchy voice that made Jeremiah clench his jaw and wonder what kind of whore had the right to just waltz into the Wayne manor when Jeremiah was more or less in the middle of trying to start courting the young billionaire.

 

_Some people have no manners. We should just kill whoever the hell she is, just in case she’s a competition. Not that she would be a match for us, but there’s no harm in killing a worthless whore._

 

Taking a calming breath, Jeremiah slowly opened the door to the kitchen to reveal Bruce, Alfred, and an unnamed curly haired girl ( _sitting way too close to_ _ **our**_ _Brucie, if she knew what’s the best for her, she’d move away._ ) happily munching on a pancake as she shot Jeremiah a curious look.

 

”So you’re the clown’s brother?” the girl asked boldly, her mouth still filled with food, and Jeremiah couldn’t have been more disgusted.

 

Bruce poked the girl in the ribs with his elbow gently. ”Don’t be so rude Selina,” he told her, while the girl, _Selina_ , just rolled her eyes at him and kept on eating.

 

_Even her name sounds like a slut. A rude, disgusting, ill-mannered slut, Bruce probably only keeps her around for pity._

 

Jeremiah would have to make Ecco do all sorts of background checks on this Selina girl. After all, he couldn’t have Bruce running around with the wrong sort, now could he? This Selina, with her dark leather jacket and unkempt hair, seemed like the definition of bad influence who was no good for anything besides tainting Bruce’s innocence and purity.

 

And well, Jeremiah liked to think that if anybody was going to be doing any tainting on Bruce Wayne, he would be the only suitable and worthy person to do so.

 

”Sorry about her Jeremiah,” Bruce said with an apologetic smile, gesturing Jeremiah to sit down opposite of him, which Jeremiah gladly did. ”She doesn’t have very good manners.”

 

”I have amazing manners, thank you very much asshole.”

 

”It’s quite okay,” Jeremiah replied, doing his best to maintain the calm and reserved persona he’d had for years, even though the situation made his inner voice scream at him to just plunge that bread-knife into Selina’s scull. ”She’s right though – my brother _was_ a clown.”

 

”See, no harm done,” Selina said, putting another piece of pancake into her mouth, while looking around the kitchen.

 

”She likes to come and go as she pleases,” Bruce explained.

 

That knowledge shouldn’t have made Jeremiah any more angry with the girl than he already was, but boy if it didn’t. The girl had a cocky, overly arrogant and entitled aura to her, despite looking as though she had slept most of her nights on some dirty alleyway. The look on her face wasn’t particularly happy or sad, just overall unimpressed but as soon as she turned her eyes back to Jeremiah, she narrowed them a little as though she was assessing whether or not he was worthy of sitting in the same table as them.

 

_If anybody here isn’t worthy of sitting in this table it’s her – she isn’t worthy of Bruce’s presence, she isn’t worthy of his time, she isn’t worthy of sitting close enough to feel the exposed skin of his arm against hers, she isn’t worthy of even a glance of Bruce’s eyes in her general direction. She’s nothing, she’s dirt and Bruce deserves better people in his life, she has to go, she has to go, she has to go._

 

”And you’re absolutely certain that this one isn’t the same as the other one?” Selina asked, quite loudly in fact, making both Bruce and Alfred to drop everything that was in their hands and look at her in shock.

 

Jeremiah had to bit his lip to stop himself from screaming at the girl. He hated being compared to Jerome – his brother was a clown, a joke, an idiotic fool who put too much of his focus on the wrong things, Jerome was a bat-shit crazy maniac. Jeremiah was intelligent and calm and calculating and the most sane person in the entire city.

 

”Selina!” Bruce gasped, appalled that his so-called friend would even ask something like that in front of Jeremiah.

 

_If she is his friend, if she is anything more, she deserves the slowest, most painful death we can think of._

 

”I think I’m just going to call Ecco to come pick me up,” Jeremiah said, quickly getting up from his seat before he did something that would make Bruce hate him. Like kill Selina right then and there. ”It has been lovely, but I’ll be going now.”

 

”No, Jeremiah wait!” Bruce tried to stop him, and it took every fiber of Jeremiah’s being to not just blindly obey everything that Bruce said. He heard Bruce quietly mutter something to the whore next to him, before fast footsteps followed him out of the kitchen.

 

Jeremiah quickly sent Ecco a text to come as soon as she could.

 

A hand on his bicep made Jeremiah stop dead on his tracks and he couldn’t help the tingling feeling that followed the touch of Bruce Wayne across his entire body. Jeremiah slowly turned around to face the boy, who was a few inches shorter than him, but was so incredibly close that Jeremiah could smell him once again.

 

Oh this was bad – the intoxicating scent of Bruce Wayne, the feel of his touch on Jeremiah’s arm, even through the clothes, the close proximity, Jeremiah swore he could’ve died there, even as the heat pooled in his lower abdomen and he had to quickly move further away from Bruce before the younger boy noticed something odd was up.

 

”You shouldn’t listen to anything Selina says, okay, she has no filter between her brain and her mouth and she is incredibly rude at times, okay,” Bruce said, finally letting go of Jeremiah’s arm. ”So could you, please just come back so we can finish breakfast.”

 

”Sorry, I really should be getting home already,” Jeremiah answered, even though everything in him was telling him to stay. But if he did, he might do something terrible to the rude bitch and he didn’t want to kill her before planning it perfectly. ”But I did have great time with you. Better than I’ve had in years.”

 

The smile on Bruce’s face almost made up for the disaster in the kitchen. Bruce’s smile was brighter than the sun, more beautiful than a field of roses and Jeremiah would do anything to have that smile presented at him every day for the rest of his life. ”I had a great time too,” Bruce confessed and the voice in Jeremiah’s head started singing his name again. ”I’ll call you later, okay? So we can meet again soon.”

 

”Of course.”

 

* * *

 

Selina Kyle – nothing more than a street rat who had witnessed the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. Jeremiah almost had to laugh.

 

Ecco had once again done incredible job by finding out everything there was to know about the trash looking girl and Jeremiah was pleased by everything he found out. A self-serving, morally ambiguous cat-lover with a degree of popularity within the criminal underworld. Not that bad, but that didn’t change the fact that she and Bruce seemed to have an on and off sort of relationship that mostly worked more in Selina’s favor than in Bruce’s.

 

And that’s where the trouble seemed to lie – Bruce seemed to be ready to bend over backwards for her at most times and she only cared when there was something in it for her. Maybe that happens to a person when they grow up in the streets of Gotham, but that didn’t change the fact that Bruce deserved somebody who didn’t manipulate him and loved him even when there was nothing to gain.

 

And, quite obviously, that person was Jeremiah.

 

”I continue to be astonished by your ability to get information on everything and everyone,” Jeremiah complimented Ecco, who almost looked pleased to get praised for once.

 

”It wasn’t all that hard to get information on Selina Kyle – a lot of people seem to know her well,” Ecco mused. ”Not a fitting trait for a criminal.”

 

”No it’s not,” Jeremiah agreed. ”The next step would be figuring out the proper way to kill her – nothing special, a piece of trash like that doesn’t deserve a too big of a spectacle, but a slow, painful death should suit her just fine.” Jeremiah couldn’t help but grin at the thought of life draining out of the poor girl’s body.

 

But before Selina Kyle could die, Jeremiah had to make sure Bruce knew exactly what kind of person she really was. Jeremiah needed Bruce to see her like he saw her – as the disgusting piece of whore shit she was. And he needed Selina to realize that Bruce wasn’t one she could use like a toy when she was bored. Jeremiah needed her to realize she no longer had Bruce wrapped around her finger before her well deserved death.

 

Jeremiah felt giddy just thinking about it. ”I know I’ve been asking for a lot of favors lately, but Ecco my dearest, would you mind doing just one more?”

 

* * *

 

When Bruce finally called that night, Jeremiah had to cry out of pure joy. He had almost been worried that Bruce had forgotten, that that bitch had taken all of his attention and time away from what really mattered.

 

”Sorry it’s so late, but I got busy,” Bruce apologized and of course Jeremiah forgave him, he would forgive Bruce anything and everything. ”Would you like to grab something to eat tomorrow maybe? I’m free all day and don’t really feel like doing anything else.”

 

_He’s only interested in spending time with us. He wants our company, he wants to give us his valuable time, not to that horrid street whore who probably sells herself for a place to sleep every night._

 

”I don’t suppose I have anything better to do,” Jeremiah said, his heart going crazy again, his blood flowing way too fast making him feel like he was about to faint.

 

Of course Jeremiah had nothing better to do than to spend time with his favorite billionaire. Except maybe plan the demise of Gotham and the death of Bruce’s beloved girlfriend, but those things could always be taken care of in the dark hours of the nights to come.

 

Just the thought of getting to see Bruce again tomorrow was enough to keep him awake for the second night in a row. It felt like Jeremiah’s entire body was on fire due to the anticipation and excitement of getting to be surrounded by Bruce’s presence.

 

Thinking about Bruce always stirred up emotions and feelings Jeremiah had fought to keep under control for many years – having repressed those urges and needs only made Jeremiah’s desires for the younger boy stronger and unshakable. Jeremiah was sure that if he didn’t get a release of this pain soon, it would eat away at him until he was just a shell of what he was. Touching a sleeping boy in the dark could only do so much to relieve Jeremiah’s longing for him.

 

For years Jeremiah hadn’t allowed to touch himself while thinking about Bruce. He had always felt guilty when the burning feeling came, when he felt himself becoming hard just thinking about the then severely underage child, the thoughts of _wrong_ and _sick_ infesting his mind whenever he had attempted to relieve himself during the lonely hours of the night or whenever he tried to cool himself in the shower.

 

Now there was no such barriers to stop himself from touching, from imagining it was Bruce’s hand sliding up and down his length, but at this point he was so far gone that his own hand just wasn’t enough. The mental images of Bruce with no clothes on wasn’t enough to ease the burning and the pain, Jeremiah needed the real thing and soon.

 

Jeremiah tossed and turned in his bed, restlessly suddenly feeling a lot more tired than he had the night before. Last night had been a dream come true, laying in the same bed as Bruce, even if the other one was unconscious and oblivious about what was happening. Jeremiah hadn’t needed sleep to feel rested and energized.

 

But now, sleeping in his much less comfortable bed, alone in his little bunker, with no Bruce Wayne and a yearning in his skin, in his bones, in every part of his body he could think of, Jeremiah felt tired and worn out. He would reach over to the other side, only to find it empty. It was no use pretending that Bruce was present, because Bruce’s presence always made Jeremiah’s skin fill with goosebumps and fire.

 

He did try sliding his hand under the covers and wrapping it around his already hard cock, but knowing it was his own hand and not Bruce’s made him feel frustrated and not satisfied by the feeling at all. Jeremiah quickly pulled his hand back and got out of the bed and nearly ran to the shower, hoping that some cold water would ease the feeling.

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah tapped his foot against the floor anxiously as he waited for Bruce to show up. Bruce had called him that morning that he could come to pick up Jeremiah from the bunker and go get something to eat. It had been twenty minutes now and Jeremiah had been waiting on the other side of the door to hear Bruce’s car pull up in front of his ’home’.

 

Jeremiah wasn’t particularly hungry, no surprise there, but he was willing to do anything to spend some time with Bruce. The voice in his head was screaming, laughing and singing in anticipation, planning on all the things they wanted to do if the opportunity would ever present itself.

 

_We should fuck him in the backseat of his car, in the middle of a full parking lot. Anybody could see, and they should see. They should know that Bruce Wayne is no longer on the market, he never was. We would pull his hair, cut into that perfect porcelain skin, leave our mark in pretty lines all over his body, hidden under his clothes so he would remember every time he took his clothes off or put them back on._

 

That mental image was slightly too risky, considering that Bruce was going to be there at any moment and if Jeremiah had a raging boner when he climbed into the car, it could get slightly awkward.

 

_Good, he should see. He should see what he does to us._

 

All in due time, of course. He needed Bruce’s full trust before he could do anything.

 

A knock on the door nearly startled Jeremiah – he had imagined that he would be able to hear the sound of Bruce’s car, but it seemed that he was wrong. But to be fair, he usually watched through the monitors if and when he was expecting people to arrive to his bunker. He rarely ever waited right behind the front door.

 

But he just couldn’t wait to see Bruce.

 

A look of surprise flashed on Bruce’s face after Jeremiah nearly tore the door out of its hinges opening it. ”Were you waiting right behind the door?” Bruce asked, laughing lightly.

 

”That’s absurd,” Jeremiah said, not taking his eyes away from Bruce’s face. How could he? Nothing else really compared to the beauty of Bruce Wayne so why would he look away from the boy.

 

”Riiiight,” Bruce nodded. ”So are you ready to go?” Bruce didn’t wait for Jeremiah to answer, instead he turned back around and started to walk towards his car.

 

”You have a nice car,” Jeremiah noted, following close behind Bruce. And it was true – the car was matte black and Jeremiah couldn’t help but think that of course a teenage billionaire would drive a car that looked like that. And to be fair, the car did suit Bruce well. It was exactly the kind of car Jeremiah could imagine Bruce owning.

 

”Thank you,” Bruce replied, climbing to the driver’s side while Jeremiah hopped onto the other side. ”I got it for my birthday from Alfred – funnily enough it was the same day your brother nearly killed us both.”

 

”Oh, I didn’t know it was your birthday,” Jeremiah said with wide eyes. Lies, lies, lies. Of course he had known it was Bruce’s birthday – during that time it just hadn’t crossed his mind, with him being deadly afraid of his brother and what might happen to him and Bruce.

 

Now it seemed silly to forget. How could he forget. The day Bruce Wayne was born was the day the world stopped being the same because the most important person ever was born. It had been stupid of him to forget – to put his own childish fears above Bruce.

 

But not anymore. Never again. Jerome wasn’t a threat anymore ( _was he ever truly?_ ) and nothing would ever come above Bruce, ever again.

 

Bruce wasn’t a bad driver – no, he knew how to handle a car but then again, Bruce was a seventeen-year-old who knew he could afford to pay the ticket should he get one and it wouldn’t really matter to him financially.

 

”Isn’t the speed-limit more like a suggestion than a universal rule?” Bruce asked with a mischievous glint in his eyes when Jeremiah pointed out the speed-limit of the particular street.

 

”Your knowledge of the traffic laws really blows my mind,” Jeremiah replied, but not actually feeling as uneasy as he pretended to. If anything, the way Bruce drove was exhilarating.

 

Bruce parked in front of a nice looking small Italian restaurant, before turning to flash Jeremiah a wide smile. ”You were a friend on Italian, right?”

 

 

The sound of Bruce’s soft, yet surprisingly deep, voice could both ease Jeremiah’s heartbeat and make it race in excitement. The way his plumb, pink lips moved as he spoke had Jeremiah biting his own, the way Bruce would slightly poke out his tongue to wet his lips every once in a while had Jeremiah shift in his chair.

 

Bruce had a lot of quirks and small habits that most people wouldn’t take a notice of, but Jeremiah did – of course he did. He wanted, he needed to know Bruce inside out, he needed to know every edge and every corner, every dark thought in his mind, every sin, everything he regretted, everything he desired and craved, everything he was willing to die for. Jeremiah needed to know if Bruce was a light or a heavy sleeper, he needed to know how often Bruce washed that impossibly soft hair of his, he needed to know if his skin was naturally that soft or if he just moisturized regularly, he needed to know if Bruce preferred jam or peanut butter on his toast, he needed to know everything there was to know and more.

 

The one thing about Bruce Wayne was that he was confident, yet oblivious. He seemed to be aware of his own physical beauty, but not as aware of the effect he could have on people. He knew he could charm a waitress with a wide smile, but didn’t think it was going to leave a lasting imprint on the pure young girl.

 

Jeremiah loved every second of it. He loved the way Bruce definitely did notice the looks Jeremiah was giving him but never thought too much of it, he loved how Bruce would _accidentally_ brush his fingers against Jeremiah’s while reaching for some salt or a napkin. He loved the way Bruce’s foot would slide against Jeremiah’s leg, either accidentally or on purpose, it didn’t matter. Jeremiah loved it, and he was sure Bruce loved it too.

 

_He’s sending signals. These are obvious signals – he wants us, we want him, we should just take him._

 

Bruce must’ve noticed that Jeremiah was shifting uncomfortably in his chair and staring at him for way too long without blinking. ”Are you okay there Jeremiah?” Bruce asked, setting his utensils down after finishing his meal. ”You seem antsy.”

 

”I’m quite fine, thank you,” Jeremiah replied quickly. ”Are you done? Should we call the waitress?”

 

Bruce snorted in amusement. It was a sound, which if it came from anybody else’s mouth it would sound unattractive and disgusting, but like everything else, Bruce made it work. ”Somebody’s in a hurry,” he noted teasingly. ”But I’m finished with mine. Are you sure you’re not hungry anymore.”

 

”I’ve learned to survive with much less,” Jeremiah said while Bruce gestured the waitress over, before starting to dig up his wallet out of his pockets. ”No, no, allow me to pay for this. I can’t let you pay for my unfinished meal.”

 

”Don’t be ridiculous Jeremiah,” Bruce said, and oh how he made Jeremiah’s name sound so lovely coming out of those lips of his. It almost made up for all the times people who were not worthy, like Jerome for example, had uttered his name out loud. ”This was my idea, so I should be the one paying for it.”

 

”Are the two of you finished with your meal?” the disgusting young, quite frankly _attractive_ waitress asked them with an overly happy tone, keeping her big blue eyes trained on Bruce’s face, fluttering her eyelashes at him, as though thinking that the more she did it, the more likely it was for Bruce to ask her out.

 

_Whoops, another whore, another death plan._

 

”Yes, it was very delicious, thank you,” Bruce smiled at the waitress, who in response giggled like some desperate slut.

 

Jeremiah hadn’t even noticed his hand wrapping around the knife, but as soon as he did, he let go of it. He really didn’t need the GCPD coming after him for murdering some nameless waitress in a jealous rage in a crowded restaurant.

 

She would die – perhaps in a same way that other girl, Selina Kyle, was going to, in pain and suffering, screaming for Bruce to save them before coming to the realization that Bruce didn’t want them saved.

 

Jeremiah had been so deep in his murder filled fantasies that he hadn’t even noticed Bruce already paying the waitress. ”Hey!” he protested. ”I thought we agreed that I’d pay for this.”

 

Bruce quirked an eyebrow up and smiled. ”Really? I don’t remember such thing,” he said, before getting up and starting to put on his jacket, and Jeremiah slowly began to do the same.

 

The nameless waitress girl – oh wait, there was a name tag, Liv, _Liv_ – stayed put while Bruce put on his jacket and played with her dark hair. ”Hope I’ll see you again soon,” she told Bruce before turning around and skipping over to the next table.

 

”She must be at least twenty and she’s flirting with a minor,” Jeremiah noted with a disapproving shake of his head, making Bruce scoff.

 

”Funny, and here I was under the impression that you were doing the same,” he grinned at Jeremiah, before walking out of the restaurant.

 

Jeremiah was nearly dumbfounded by the comment, before the feeling was replaced by immense satisfaction – at least he wasn’t put off by it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> k, leave a comment if you will, they always make me smile even though i'm a dark edgelord who's one with the darkness lol


	5. 4. Like a knife that cuts right to my soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so, this chapter was supposed to go up on saturday. it was also supposed to be about 3,000 words shorter than it is. whoops, i guess?  
> honestly, i'm not super satisfied with this chapter, it's mostly just 4x20 and 4x21. from the next chapter on this story will start to derail from canon a bit more, so that'll be fun?  
> also, i've made a playlist on spotify which i listen to while writing this, does anybody want me to link it? the chapter titles come from those songs, btw

**Chapter 4**

 

 

Jeremiah couldn’t contain the giddiness he was feeling – after nearly two months of hard work, the stage was finally set. They had managed to create enough bombs for Jeremiah’s plan to work out flawlessly, and a few extra ones just in case. And all in time for the little memorial Jerome’s foolish followers were going to throw him in the dead of the night. Soon they too would be cured of the disease Jerome had infected their small little brains with – if they even had one. Mindless followers, willing to do the bidding of anyone who wreaked enough havoc in the city.

 

All the better for Jeremiah.

 

Then of course there was the case of the delightfully naive Bruce Wayne. Well, maybe naive wasn’t the best word to describe him, although he was when it came to Jeremiah and his plans. Or maybe he knew what was going on and chose to turn a blind eye to it all, eager to see the fall of the city that had caused him too much pain.

 

In the end, it didn’t matter if Bruce knew or not – in the end, he would stand beside Jeremiah as they built the city back up from its ashes. Jeremiah would be the artist and Bruce was going to be his muse, his inspiration, his motivation.

 

Jeremiah had contemplated on not giving the people a chance to run, just let them die with the city, so it would be just him and Bruce until the end of times. He wouldn’t have to worry about anybody looking at Bruce anymore, he wouldn’t have to worry about anybody else lusting after him if they were alone.

 

But if Jeremiah was at all alike to Jerome in any aspect, it had to be that he wanted an audience. He wanted people to witness this, the rise of Jeremiah and Bruce, to bow down at their feet and to recognize them as their kings, their gods, their betters.

 

* * *

 

Jerome might’ve been an idiot, a joke and a failure at best, but there was one thing he had succeeded in – getting people to listen to his mad plans. It was almost amusing to watch how far the fools were willing to go just because they were under the impression that Jerome had told them to. Or maybe they were just junkies – getting high on the feeling of chaos and mayhem, like a sweet release at the end of a stressful day. It didn’t matter any how. They kept the GCPD occupied long enough for Jeremiah to make sure he had Bruce where he wanted him.

 

Bruce had been astonished by how fast Jeremiah had finished his ’generators’ - Jeremiah of course didn’t mention that he’d had more than enough motivation to get them to work.

 

Jeremiah had always prided himself to be a great actor – far better than Jerome ever could have even dreamed of. After all, Jeremiah had spent most of his life pretending to be someone he wasn’t. That’s why it had been so ridiculously easy to lure Bruce out of the bunker and to the graveyard.

 

It had been comical to Jeremiah, to pretend to believe that Jerome might still be alive – sure Gotham had proved to be a place where the rules of the nature could be bent every once in a while to work in the favor of anyone fortunate enough, but it was very doubtful that Jerome would be able to trick death twice.

 

Besides, this time the bastard had gotten a proper burial. A little over a month six feet under was enough to make sure anybody was dead. But hey – if Jeremiah ever felt like dabbling into the darker side of science, maybe he’d give it a go himself and try to resurrect his brother again. Only to kill him once again, of course.

 

Jeremiah had fantasized about it often. Finding out the cure to death and bringing his brother back only to kill him, over and over again, just to make sure that the slimy piece of shit would suffer for the rest of the eternity. Knowing Jerome though, he’d probably enjoy every second of it.

 

But that didn’t matter. What did matter however, was that Bruce ( _oh the good, the kind, the understanding Bruce_ ), was willing to go the extra mile just to ease the troubles in Jeremiah’s mind.

 

Jeremiah was fairly sure he’d never experienced the love of another person, not at its full capacity at least, but he was sure that he loved Bruce Wayne. And he was sure Bruce Wayne loved him back, even if the younger boy seemed to enjoy hiding his true feelings from others. Jeremiah could understand and respect that – Bruce liked to keep people he cared about close, but never _too_ close. He’d learn to lose his loved ones.

 

Bruce wouldn’t ever have to worry about losing Jeremiah. Jeremiah was going to make sure to plant himself so deep beneath Bruce’s skin that no matter how hard anyone would try, they could never pluck out the roots Jeremiah left there. He would tattoo himself onto Bruce’s skin, his bones, his blood, his brain, his lungs and his heart with the darkest ink he could imagine, so Bruce would always feel him there, somewhere, no matter how hard he tried to rub him off ( _he wouldn’t want us off_ ).

 

It hadn’t been a part of his plan to tell Bruce about the insanity gas and how Jerome had managed to spray him with it, but it worked in his favor. Bruce's sympathy was instantly on his side, and before Jeremiah knew it, he was once again in Bruce’s car, driving towards the graveyard, where the final showdown would go off.

 

_One day soon we’ll fuck him in this car. In it. On top of it. Anywhere around it really. While it moves, while it’s parked, with somebody else driving, with Bruce driving it, however we’ll make it work._

 

”Still no answer,” Bruce said after the sixth time of calling his butler. Jeremiah of course knew where the man could be found, and almost told Bruce in order to stop his worries, because as pretty as the creasing of Bruce’s brows and the little frown on his face was, Jeremiah hated to see him so upset.

 

”Then something’s wrong,” Jeremiah said, pretending to be worried and scared. It was almost fun – he could understand why Jerome always had a thing for showmanship. ”We should go.”

 

”He was on his way to your office. He’ll wait for us there.” Jeremiah admired the way Bruce was able to keep himself calm and collected, even when he was slightly worried and nervous. The way he would carry himself confidently and with elegance nobody else could ever replicate – he would even envy it if his desire for the boy wasn’t burning him alive.

 

A sound of branched and leaves crunching came from the distance. ”What was that?” Jeremiah asked, panicked and even Bruce seemed slightly confused.

 

”We’re almost there,” Bruce assured him. ”Just a quick look and we’ll leave.”

 

Bruce’s calm facade quickly faded after discovering the empty grave of Jerome – his followers really were mindless idiots. Never questioning orders if they were said in a specific way.

 

Even though Bruce was visibly shocked and surprised, he never once panicked. He kept a level-head, even when Jeremiah pretended to get hysteric and run around the graveyard like a terrified monkey.

 

”Jeremiah, we need to leave! It’s not safe!” Bruce called out to him, following Jeremiah to the underground vaults in the graveyard. Jeremiah was glad he was hidden away from Bruce’s sight – he could barely contain the grin on his face.

 

”You believe me now? Jerome’s alive.”

 

”No, his followers dug him up,” Bruce tried to reason with him. Jeremiah could hear his soft, barely there, footsteps coming closer to where Jeremiah was hiding. ”They’re sick. They’re also dangerous and they might be nearby.”

 

”How can I trust you if you won’t believe me?” Of course Jeremiah trusted Bruce – he trusted him with his life and soul, he would trust Bruce with his own beating heart in his hands.

 

”You can trust me because I’m your friend,” Bruce replied, still moving closer and closer to where Jeremiah was hiding, until he finally decided to come out from behind the wall.

 

”I want you to be my friend Bruce.” _We want him to be our friend, our lover, our greatest enemy, our everything and more, we want him to be our heart and our mind, we want him to be our king and our slave, we want him to be our god and our priest, we want him to be our sun and our moon._ ”You have no idea what it was like living underground for all those years. Then you came along and gave me everything I could dream of.”

 

Well not everything – not yet at least. But soon he would.

 

”That’s because I believe in you,” Bruce told him. ”We’re going to do great things for Gotham.” They were, weren’t they? But not before everything was perfect. Not before he showed Bruce his true face, under all that make up and fake glasses.

 

When Jeremiah shot at Bruce, the boy was less alarmed and more annoyed than anything – of course Jeremiah wasn’t aiming at _Bruce_ , just at his feet and that was enough to make Bruce believe Jeremiah was completely serious in believing Bruce was actually Jerome. The funny thing was, Bruce didn’t seem too caught off guard by the accusation. Even though his face was laced with worry, it never seemed to be out of fear for his own life – it looked like Bruce was more worried about Jeremiah’s well being than his own.

 

 _So this is love… mmm mmm mmm_ the voice in his head begun to sing as Bruce and Jeremiah begun to move out of the vaults, with Jeremiah pointing the gun at Bruce’s back.

 

Everything had gone accordingly to Jeremiah’s plan, down to a T. Jerome’s body sitting next his grave, dead as ever, James Gordon dead in the matter of minutes and Bruce holding Jeremiah in a headlock, strong and immovable. Jeremiah almost didn’t want Bruce to let go, just hold him close to his body.

 

”Jeremiah, don’t let Jerome turn you into him,” Bruce told Jeremiah. ”Don’t let him win this battle.” Well of course Jerome wasn’t going to win – he was dead, Jeremiah was alive, Jeremiah had Bruce while Jerome never did, and Jeremiah’s plans seemed to actually work, unlike his brother’s.

 

”Jerome beat me? That’ll be the day,” this time he couldn’t help the slight laugh coming out of his mouth. As if on cue, Jerome’s followers crept up on them and ripped Bruce off of Jeremiah’s body, before beginning to chant Jerome’s name like he was a god among men.

 

Some people were just foolish like that – it wasn’t their fault.

 

Pulling the gun back out of his sleeve, Jeremiah shot the one holding him in the head, effectively silencing the fools praising his brother. If Bruce hadn’t seemed shocked or alarmed before, he sure did now, with wide eyes and a gasp coming out of those pretty lips of his, as though he couldn’t believe that Jeremiah had just done that.

 

”Long live Jerome?” Jeremiah mocked, finally dropping the exhausting facade he had been keeping up for the past month or so. ”Are you serious? He’s dead. Haven’t you been paying attention?” Jeremiah removed his glasses off his face and pulled out a hankerchief to wipe the blood and make up off his face.

 

Jeremiah hadn’t exactly anticipated what Bruce’s reaction to his slow reveal would be. Relief and happiness, perhaps? Relief to know he wasn’t alone in this world, happy to know there was somebody out there like Jeremiah? Excitement and giddyness maybe. Shock definitely.

 

But he hadn’t anticipated on Bruce looking so incredibly horrified and betrayed. Jeremiah turned around to kick Jerome back into his grave, where he belonged, before turning around to look at Bruce again. ”Don’t look like that Bruce,” he said, tilting his head a little bit before taking a few steps closer to the boy. ”Don’t look like you didn’t know what was going on.”

 

Bruce shook his head. ”I didn’t,” he said, his voice gruff and weak, like he was holding back tears. Jeremiah wanted him to let them go – let the tears fall down his cheeks and release all the frustration and betrayal he was feeling before realizing that this was what both of them wanted.

 

”That’s odd,” Jeremiah mused. ”Then why did you act like you did?”

 

”No, I didn’t. I didn’t act like anything.” Jeremiah could let this lie slip, just this once. They could talk about it later. Now, it seemed like the boy just wanted answers, and he didn’t need to ask for them, Jeremiah was going to give them to him, like he was going to give Bruce everything else he wanted.

 

”Look Bruce. Like everything he put his mind to, Jerome’s insanity gas failed,” Jeremiah told him. ”Other than some… _mild_ cosmetic effects, he might as well have sprayed me with water. You all need to see Jerome for the utter dud that he was, so I donned the mask of madness to show you how feeble it is compared to actual greatness. Behold – the face of true sanity.”

 

Few more steps closer to Bruce, who kept his face stoic, even though Jeremiah could see the emotions he was hiding behind his _pretty, pretty, pretty brown eyes_. ”But looks aren’t everything,” he said, stepping close enough to touch Bruce, who flinched lightly when Jeremiah brought his hand to touch his skin. ”I have a compendium of Jerome’s obsessions and goals, and I will outdo every one of them. _Did you know you were one of those things, Bruce?_ ” he whispered the last part only to Bruce, letting his breath his the side of his face as Bruce struggled to keep calm and collected.

 

”Jerome wanted to turn Gotham into a madhouse,” Jeremiah said, leaning away from Bruce again. ”But to truly build something you must tear down what's already there. Will you do that with me, Bruce? Will you help me tear down the city that’s caused you nothing more than pain and suffering, taken away everything you’ve ever held dear?”

 

”Jeremiah the gas worked. You want to carry out Jerome’s crazy plans sanely? What could be madder than that?” Bruce asked him.

 

”Madder?” Jeremiah asked, pulling out Jerome’s stupid little diary out of his jacket and opened it. It was filled with silly little murder fantasies, filled with Jeremiah, Jim Gordon and most of all, Bruce Wayne. What really made it disgusting to Jeremiah, was that not every scenario with Bruce in it had to do with killing the poor boy. Graphic descriptions and drawings of his disturbing plans had kept Jeremiah up at night, wondering if his sick brother had the chance to make at least one of them reality before meeting his end. ”Let’s see. Ah, here for example – Jerome wanted to slather you in honey and have you eaten alive by corpse beetles. Now that’s mad.”

 

The lunatics started chuckling and cheering when Jeremiah pulled his gun back out. ”Me, if I want to kill you, I’ll just do it. I’ll shoot you in the head. Simply and sanely.” He pointed the gun at Bruce, causing the lunatics to start jeering and egging him, to do what Jerome couldn’t and finally kill off the pretty prince of Gotham. ”Come on! Are you gonna listen? Or are you going to behave like children?” he all but scolded the Jerome fanatics, successfully silencing them.

 

The sight of Bruce’s face nearly made Jeremiah want to take it all back. Tell him that if this hurts him so much, he’ll stop and things can go back the way they were an hour ago. But Jeremiah had come too far to give up now, and besides, he knew that deep down, Bruce wanted the same things as Jeremiah. He just needed some extra incentive to take the leap to the other side.

 

”See, I don’t want to kill you Bruce,” Jeremiah told him, licking his lips lightly as he examined Bruce’s face. ”The last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt _you_. I need you Bruce, just as much as you need me if not more. The two of us, we’re meant to be together, like two puzzle pieces that have been missing from the picture for far too long. Don’t you want to know what I’ve already accomplished, in this short amount of time we’ve known each other, with your help? Because none of this could have happened without your help.”

 

Bruce looked almost desperate, like he was choking back sobs. ”My help?” he asked, and oh, he couldn’t have been that stupid, that dense, that in denial of it all. He must’ve known, he must’ve _caught up_ by now.

 

_He’s just overwhelmed – he has never experienced love like ours, he doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t know how to react to it._

 

Jeremiah couldn’t contain the grin that appeared onto his face. ”I feel very indebted to you Bruce. See those generators that we built – with your money – they work even better as bombs.” And if the day hadn’t already worked exactly like Jeremiah had planned it in his head so many times, the alarm he had set into his watch started to go off. It was by bye James Gordon time.

 

Th explosion was beautiful and magnificent and Jeremiah hadn’t ever felt anything more exhilarating as watching the place he had called his home, his comfort zone, his prison for so long go up in flames with Captain James Gordon, who Bruce seemed to hold oh so dear to his heart, inside.

 

”That’s one down. Jim Gordon is dead,” Jeremiah announced turning to look at Bruce again, who seemed to go into a fit of panic and rage at the sound of the detective being dead.

 

If James Gordon had really been that important to Bruce, it was for the best that he was gone now. Bruce didn’t need anybody else in his heart, in his mind, in his life, than Jeremiah. He was better off like this.

 

”Yes, Bruce,” Jeremiah told him as Jerome’s, no _his_ , followers held the teen back. ” _Sorry_ , but progress demands sacrifice.”

 

If Bruce hadn’t been holding back tears before, he sure was now and the only thing more beautiful and more captivating would’ve been the sight of the tears falling down his cheeks, leaving behind wet marks as he grieved the man who had failed him so many times. Seriously, he couldn’t even stay alive for too long – Bruce didn’t deserve people who were going to just ultimately leave him. He deserved someone who would stay with him, even after death.

 

”I’m going to stop you,” Bruce told him, and Jeremiah wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or yell.

 

”I really hope you don’t try,” he told Bruce, taking a step closer again and running his fingers down the _soft, smooth, pale skin_ while trying to contain his grin. ”It wouldn’t make you anything less than a hypocrite. We want the same thing Bruce – you’re just in denial, but don’t worry. I’ll help you see the truth, just as I’m seeing it. After all – you’re my very best friend, the most important thing in this world.”

 

It was at that moment that Jeremiah realized that there was no need for self control anymore. Bruce wouldn’t see if he didn’t show him first. All he had to do was lean just a few inches forward and tilt his head lightly down to grace his lips against Bruce’s for the lightest peck. He didn’t stay there for two long, a few seconds, just to ease the craving to feel those pink lips on his. It was intoxicating really – a few seconds and he was already hooked.

 

Bruce had tensed in shock, but relaxed again, went completely limb in fact. Maybe it was because Jeremiah hit him in the head with his gun, a little roughly, resulting in Bruce passing out. But it was just a maybe.

 

 

* * *

 

Perhaps leaving Bruce in a cold open grave was a little harsh – especially when Jeremiah was more or less trying to propose to the young boy. Well, maybe not _propose_ , but they were meant to spend the rest of their eternities with each other. Wasn’t trying to make Bruce see that just about the same thing as proposing?

 

But Jeremiah had plans, big plans and Bruce would be coming to him nevertheless. He would find Jeremiah and he would realize the truth (he probably already had but his rigid moral code wasn’t letting him follow his instincts and needs).

 

”What is it exactly that Bruce needs to see?” Ecco had asked him when Jeremiah had raved on and on about it the night before the big day.

 

It was simple really – in order to cure an infection, one needed leukocytes to destroy the bacteria. And Gotham really had been infected, so it was up to Bruce and Jeremiah to cure it. Sometimes along with healing came fever, and it might even feel worse before it got better. And Bruce and Jeremiah were going to make it better than it ever was.

 

It was ridiculous how fast Jerome’s followers had jumped to his side after Jeremiah successfully killed James Gordon – the way they chanted his name, while they never did so with his psychopath brother, the way they would stay still and calm just because he asked them to. He had more power over those sickos than his brother ever did and that was another thing that made Jeremiah nearly explode out of exhilaration.

 

And he had managed to make even the GCPD to do exactly what he wanted them to. All it really took was blowing up one little clock tower and the police force of the city were more than ready to do what he told them to. Pitiful really. That was exactly why the whole city needed a proper cleansing.

 

Jeremiah knew Bruce must’ve been sick with worry by now – with no news of his dear little butler and James Gordon blown up to pieces, the poor boy must’ve been going insane.

 

Of course it was Jeremiah’s job to comfort him, let him know that everything was going to be just fine. As long as he did as Jeremiah wanted of course.

 

”Alfred, where have you been?” Bruce answered the call Jeremiah made with Alfred’s phone. His tone was harsh and laced with concern.

 

”No, not Alfred,” Jeremiah told him calmly. ”I hope you didn’t catch a cold in my brother’s grave – I know those things aren’t exactly designed for the living.”

 

”What have you done? Where’s Alfred?” Oh, Jeremiah found Bruce’d demanding tone quite… arousing in fact. He could get used to hearing it more often, but now he was more concerned about Bruce’s manners than anything. There really was no reason to be so rude to someone who just wanted to help.

 

”Such anger,” Jeremiah tutted. ”Some people – not me of course – might consider that ingratitude, considering all I’ve done for you, all I’m still doing for you.”

 

”You mean lying to me? Using my company to build bombs? Trying to kill me?” Jeremiah was just lightly confused – at which point had he tried to kill Bruce? It seemed like they had two very different memories of the experience at the graveyard.

 

”Bruce, let’s get something straight. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I would have put a bullet through you brain and left you to rot in that grave.”

 

”You’re insane.” Jeremiah felt a bang in his chest – after all Jeremiah had done. After all the effort he had made just for Bruce, he still had the audacity and nerve to insult him, as though Jeremiah meant nothing. ”You killed Jim Gordon.”

 

There was no other possibility – he just wished that he and Bruce could have met sooner, that they’d have created the deep and profound connection they now shared earlier, before the likes of _James Gordon_ and _Selina Kyle_ had the chance to brainwash him into thinking these awful, _awful_ thoughts. It was good that Gordon was dead – and Selina Kyle would be too, soon. Then Jeremiah and Bruce could concentrate on cleansing Gotham and curing the mental state Bruce had been conditioned in.

 

”And if you don’t want your manservant to die too you’ll follow my instructions to the letter,” Jeremiah told him, while leading his followers to the address he was about to tell Bruce to come to. ”71 Welling Avenue. Be there in an hour. Tell the police and I’ll know – just like I know that’s where you are right now.”

 

A few months ago Jeremiah would have called that obsession – now however, Jeremiah had realized that keeping tabs on Bruce Wayne was necessary if you wanted to make sure he won’t do something stupid to either sabotage Jeremiah’s plans or even worse, get himself killed. Because if the past was anything to go by, it seemed as though Bruce really had a death wish. It was only responsible for him to make sure Bruce wouldn’t get hurt.

 

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t too far off to say that maybe Jeremiah had a _slight_ god-complex. It wasn’t something he could help. Seeing everyone in Gotham – the police, the citizens, Jerome’s former followers, _Bruce Wayne_ – dancing to his beat, following his orders, following his plans and making his vision come true did nothing but feed the ever growing superiority Jeremiah felt.

 

All it took was kidnapping one butler to make Bruce Wayne to do anything. The butler had apparently put up quite the fight, but in the end, what harm can an old man really do? Not much.

 

Jeremiah hated torturing Bruce the way he had to – but Jeremiah had long learned that real pain, the one that sticks with you, the one that nags and doesn’t leave you, never is physical one. You can cut off a person’s limb and they’ll come back just fine. But hurting someone emotionally will leave lasting effects, ones that can stick until death frees them from it.

 

Jeremiah looked at the footage of Bruce through the portable monitor. ”Oh Bruce,” he said longingly as his eyes remained fixated on the screen. ”You are about to have a very transformative experience. I envy you.”

 

The quality of the video could’ve been better – far better in fact. Jeremiah wished that the camera could truly capture every single one of Bruce’s freckles and the texture of his skin. Jeremiah wanted to be able to distinguish every shade of brown in his eyes by just looking at the screen. But that wasn’t possible – he would just have to wait until he had Bruce in the flesh, close enough to count his freckles again, to feel the skin and to really see the shades of brown. All good things come to those who wait, wasn’t that the saying?

 

 _Not sure how long we can wait anymore_ , the voice in his head wasn’t manic and deranged anymore. No, now it sounded desperate, in pain and like it needed a release – well maybe that was because Jeremiah really needed one.

 

Just a little while now. Then it’ll all be good, then we’ll have it all.

 

”Call our friend,” Jeremiah told one of _his_ followers, handing him the portable monitor back, after finally managing to rip his eyes off the screen. ”Tell him to kill the butler. He’s no longer necessary.” He hated having to hurt Bruce. But if by hurting him Jeremiah was able to show Bruce that he didn’t really need anyone else in his life, just Jeremiah, then he’d have to make every necessary move inorder to do that.

 

It was a shame, really. And Jeremiah really thought so, it was such a shame having to kill the man. He was obviously very skilled fighter, having worked in the British airforce (yes, Jeremiah knew everything about Bruce and the people surrounding him, after all, the most reasonable thing to do was to find out every single little detail). The man was also very polite and an excellent cook and had treated Bruce the way a true king should be treated. Alfred Pennyworth didn’t actually deserve to die, but in the end, the man was just a plot device, a means to an end and completely replaceable.

 

Walking down a set of stairs in the warehouse, Jeremiah was greeted by a rather surprising sight – and it was very hard to surprise Jeremiah at this point. He did his best to expect everything after all.

 

”Oswald Cobblepot,” he mused looking down at the very short bird-like man, who couldn’t have looked more pleased with himself. Like usual, the man of course wasn’t alone – he was accompanied by a rather unimpressive group. ”Barbara Kean. In my stronghold.”

 

”Not one step closer Mr Valeska,” Oswald Cobblepot told him smugly, gesturing to the familiar man with a grenade in his mouth and a core relay tied to him.

 

Certainly slightly exciting – not very impressive however.

 

”And is that my dear Jongleur with my core relay in his hand and a grenade taped to his mouth?” Jeremiah could play along. After all, they had seemed to see an awful lot of trouble, just for him. It would be rather rude to just brush them aside. He was in no hurry.

 

”Indeed it is.” The only aggravating thing about the scenario was the smug attitude of the bird. Jerome really should have just killed him, after all, the man was no good for anything but catching the scent of easy money and picking out suits.

 

”Huh,” Jeremiah hummed. ”It seems you have the upper hand.” As if. This was Jeremiah’s territory now – the whole city was. There really was no way somebody, especially somebody like Oswald Cobblepot and Barbara Kean and their little gang of freaks, could have any leverage with him.

 

But he’d just have to amuse them. Just this once – see what they want and try not to laugh.

 

”Undoubtedly,” Oswald agreed, the proud smile never leaving his face. ”And now we have our own demands.”

 

It was almost cute that the four of them thought that Jeremiah thought of his new followers as nothing but liabilities. Every single one of them was replaceable, none of them mattered, especially the one with a grenade taped to his mouth. If anything he became even more useless now.

 

The only person on the face of the earth that mattered was Bruce Wayne – had it been him in danger, Jeremiah would’ve gladly done anything for Oswald Cobblepot and his band of embarrassments.

 

”Fifty million,” Jeremiah did his best to keep his tone even and not to laugh after hearing the demands from the four. He had sat down to listen to them go on about what they wanted for the life of his follower – there really was no point in standing up for anything as useless as this. ”That’s what you want.”

 

Oswald Cobbleput shrugged. ”It’s a nice round number,” he answered.

 

”I don’t quite have that on me right now,” Jeremiah admitted.

 

”You gave the mayor six hours to evacuate the city – an impossible task.” _That was sort of the fucking point of it, but okay_. ”Let him buy another hour. He will save thousands of lives – Fifty million dollars will seem cheap.” _But that takes away all the fun of it._

 

Jeremiah almost commented on how Oswald should start seeking therapy for his greed – it was a deadly sin after all.

 

”I see,” Jeremiah mused. ”I play the villain, you get away scot-free and rich. I give you the money, you give me back my core-relay.” _Not that losing one would make any difference, but let the kids play._

 

”That is usually how a handoff works,” Barbara Kean butted into the conversation. Funny how some people always wanted to be the center of attention.

 

 _We definitely can’t relate to that_.

 

”You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll see what I can do.” At this point this was all just a waste of time – Jeremiah was itching to get his hands on Bruce, who had all but ran into his arms, and these idiots were _wasting his time._

 

”Just like that? After knowing your brother, I expected something more-”

 

”Insane?” Jeremiah snapped, insulted by the mere thought of it. Had he not already proven he was far superior to his idiotic brother? What more did he have to do to make these morons see that?

 

_They don’t matter – Bruce is all that matters and they’re wasting our time!_

 

Right. The sooner he was done with this nonsense, the faster he could get to Bruce. ”I’m nothing if not sane,” Jeremiah told them. ”And reasonable – two things my brother never valued. Which is why I’ll be successful where he failed. Well, that and being vastly more intelligent. Now I’ll see about your money.”

 

* * *

 

The whole incident with Oswald Cobblepot and the crew had been a minor inconvenience if anything – it was cute how the likes of them thought of themselves as something alike to dangerous criminals. They were greedy malefactors at worst.

 

But it mattered not. The plan continued – Bruce running around the warehouse in panic, desperately trying to find his dear butler, who was going to be dead in a matter of minutes. There was no way Bruce was going to make it in time.

 

Jeremiah had already fled far away from the blast radius of the bombs – all he needed to do now was to blow the city into pieces before returning to Bruce, who most likely had gone full on insane by now.

 

Life was good when you were invincible.

 

His followers were standing in neat rows, backs straight and quietly waiting for Jeremiah to give them orders. Jerome never had this kind of power over them – they would listen to him but they still had their own wills, going out of their way to please Jerome but never really letting him change their behavior. The fact that former lunatics were willing to stand by like soldiers for Jeremiah only further proved how much better he was than his brother.

 

And soon the rest of Gotham would see it too – and if Bruce Wayne didn’t already, he would be right there with them.

 

”All my life, I spent by myself,” Jeremiah told them. ”Hidden away. I am so happy to be sharing this moment with all of you.” Had Oswald Cobblepot and his idiots not encouraged him to go back on his promise of six hours, Bruce would’ve been there with them. It was a shame that they didn’t get to experience this moment together, but oh well. Bruce would be safe, nonetheless. They would find each other again soon anyway.

 

”Today marks the dawning of a new Gotham city,” Jeremiah couldn’t contain the smile on his face, pulling out the trigger from his coat pocket. ”Now shall I do the honors?”

 

He was all but ready to turn the switch – second away from it in fact, until his moment of glory was rudely interrupted by one of his followers and by the television.

 

”That’s Jim Gordon.” _No it isn’t-_ Jeremiah turned around to face the small television which had been broadcasting the panic and terror the city had been experiencing while struggling to evacuate.

 

Captain Gordon really was like a little cockroach – how many times had he been assumed dead only to crawl back up again? It started to really get on Jeremiah’s nerves.

 

Jeremiah hadn’t been angry after seeing James Gordon’s irritating face on screen – simply annoyed and slightly frustrated. It was when the detective decided to compare him to his brother – to dare to insuniate that he was just a cheap copy of his brother – that Jeremiah truly felt rage bubbling inside his chest.

 

He was going to be so satisfied when James Gordon went up in flames with the rest of the city – and if he found a way to save himself from that too, well then Jeremiah would just have to go and dig up his heart and brain out of his body, slice them up and throw them into the ocean, just to make sure that the poor bastard was dead for good this time.

 

”You did your worst Jeremiah – and I’m still here.” If Gordon thought that the bomb had been the worst he can do, he would have to be greatly disappointed.

 

”You lied to us!”

 

”Gordon’s alive!”

 

”What does it matter whether he is alive or not?” Jeremiah snapped, having never experienced rage quite like this before. ”When I hit this switch, we will hear the sounds of a new world being born.” Jeremiah was smiling again.

 

”Now listen,” Jeremiah grinned as he turned the switch.

 

He expected explosions. Sound of destruction coming from above, screams of pain and terror and the exhilarating, overwhelming, intoxicating feeling of victory, having finally one-upped his brother.

 

He didn’t expect the switch to let out a disappointing swish of air and stop working.

 

His followers didn’t like that one bit – well, who would’ve. Jeremiah couldn’t help but laugh. People, even the mentally deranged ones, were becoming too predictable for their own good.

 

It was good he was prepared for everything.

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah wouldn’t say he was angry that the city didn’t go up in flames and that the position of Bruce Wayne’s butler was still occupied. But he sure was annoyed by it.

 

”I’ll just have to start again.” Some would say that talking to oneself was the number one factor to finding out that someone’s crazy. Jeremiah would have to disagree with that – it was simply easier to think when you said your thoughts out loud.

 

It wouldn’t have mattered that Gotham was still intact and not blown into pieces if Jeremiah had Bruce there with him – but that slimy little homeless cat had to come and ruin all of Jeremiah’s plans.

 

_All the more reason to kill her. To slice our way to her chest – take out her beating heart with our bare hands and feed it to those cats she loves so much._

 

”You’re tenacious,” A foreign voice came from somewhere behind him, making Jeremiah quickly reach for his gun and point at the intruder – only to not find them anywhere in sight. ”I like that.”

 

”Who are you? What do you want?” Jeremiah asked calmly, and noticed a man standing in front of the big window above him.

 

”I had a vision – of Gotham in flames,” the man told him. _Ah. Another crazy person – how swell._ ”Together we can make that happen.”

 

Oh, if only Jeremiah cared for anybody else’s company than Bruce’s. He still wouldn’t take the offer though. ”Well I appreciate the offer, but recent events have convinced me of the benefits of working alone.” _Yes, working alone with Bruce Wayne._

 

There’s still Ecco, though. _Ecco will be useless after we have Bruce._ Oh, that was true too.

 

Jeremiah tried shooting the man multiple times, but the man seemed to move inhumanly fast. Maybe it was the sleep-deprivation – maybe he was just seeing things. _Seeing things is for the crazy people – we’re not crazy people._ He couldn’t really argue with the voice.

 

”Don’t be so rash – your dreams of new Gotham will come to be. With my help.” Jeremiah followed the man’s voice and shot at him again, only for him to disappear once more.

 

Jeremiah sighed after not being able to find him anywhere. ”You’re behind me aren’t you?” Sure enough, the man had moved closer – Jeremiah dropped his gun as he turned around to see the greying man emerging from shadows with a smile on his face.

 

”I can conquer Gotham on my own, what makes you think I need your help, whoever you are?” How rude, to not introduce themselves, even when it seemed like the man knew Jeremiah plenty well.

 

Very, very rude. Nobody in this town had manners anymore.

 

”Because, my boy, all this is not just about Gotham.” _Nice deduction there, a genius really at hand over here._ ”It’s about Bruce Wayne.”

 

Not that Jeremiah’s attention was instantly grabbed at the sound of Bruce Wayne’s name, but Jeremiah’s attention was instantly grabbed at the sound of Bruce Wayne’s name.

 

* * *

 

The security systems of the Wayne manor were laughable – no wonder so many criminals had managed to break in so many times. Jeremiah was going to have to have a little talk about safety with Bruce himself, but for now it worked for his benefit.

 

Jeremiah wasn’t big on prophesies and destinies – they were bunch of horse-shit in his opinion. But the man, Ra’s A Ghul, had seemed to know things about Jeremiah, about Bruce, about everything that nobody else should be able to know.

 

” _I know your thoughts, your desires – how a ten-year-old Bruce Wayne made you feel.”_ Jeremiah hadn’t felt ashamed of that. Not anymore – after all, desire was the most logical reaction to seeing Bruce Wayne.

 

What really had captured his attention though, was what the man had to say about Bruce. _”He feels the same way – well, close to it anyway. Maybe not as intense, not as long term, and it sure will fade away soon if he doesn’t let go of his rigid moral code – and of that cat girl who’s in his living room right now.”_

 

Jeremiah had planned for Selina Kyle to die after hours and hours of torture. But after seeing the dirty, disgusting, vile rat press her lips against Bruce’s, Jeremiah couldn’t contain the urge, the rage, the desire to see her blood spilled.

 

”To be fair,” he said, managing to get the attention of the two, who looked at him in shock. ”the day is not over yet.”

 

Bruce and Selina both stood up from the couch. _Oh how adorable, the kitty cat stands in front of him like she could protect him_. He doesn’t need protecting. She’s just making herself an easier target.

 

Jeremiah had planned on shooting Selina Kyle on her stomach – she would survive, and she would die later, slower and much more painfully. But she had to go and touch what wasn’t hers. _That won’t do, that won’t do._

 

Jeremiah didn’t even bother to look at the little whore – she didn’t deserve any more of his or Bruce’s attention.

 

 _Oh, Bruce_. Mouth agape in shock as he stared at Jeremiah, breathing heavily, holding his gaze. _So this is love, mmm mmm mmm._

 

Jeremiah grinned at Bruce, still keeping his eyes on the boy, _the beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful, perfect boy_ and aimed the gun at Selina Kyle’s jugular.

 

A bang. A lot of blood. Bruce may have been screaming and Jeremiah was sure he was being beaten by the butler. No matter – he was still laughing. Selina Kyle was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D:D:D:D:D  
> literally just replied to someone's comment saying selina will be just fine


	6. 5. Loose the shackles of pressure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my initial plan was to be ready to post this like on sunday at best, but i had this document open every time i used my laptop and i didn't even touch it because i was too busy looking at memes that make me forget i have clinical depression, sooo..... this is also really short because i ran out of things i want to add into this chapter, but i promise i'll try to make the nest chapter longer and more entertaining lol

 

 

**Chapter 5**

 

The pain of having been beaten to near pulp was nowhere near the pain Jeremiah had experienced after seeing the expression on Bruce’s face as he hopelessly tried to stop his little girlfriend’s bleeding. What good was that going to do, Jeremiah wanted to ask. He had shot a bullet through Selina Kyle’s lovely little throat. She was long dead.

 

Bruce had been crying – not like he had in the graveyard, when he tried to swallow his tears and whines. This time Bruce was openly sobbing and screaming, hands and clothes red with blood, until he had been forcefully dragged away from the corpse by the police. Jeremiah hadn’t had the chance to see Bruce after that, having been taken away by the police as well – though he didn’t miss the way they had let the butler get in a few good punches before doing so.

 

Jeremiah hadn’t even tried to fight back. Really in the end, this was one certain way to get Bruce’s attention. Sure, the plan had been to only wound Selina Kyle, not _kill_ her and then take Bruce away from the safety of his little manor, but the opportunity had presented itself and well. The rest was history.

 

But Jeremiah was still seething with anger towards the cat girl. She had dared to lay her hands on Bruce, dared to think she had the right and privilege to press her tainted dirty lips against his clean pure ones. She had thought of herself worthy of doing so. And Bruce had let her – there had been no complaint, no objection, he had even leaned forward.

 

It wasn’t his fault that the scum had managed to wrap him around her little finger. Bruce wasn’t to blame for Selina’s manipulations and the way she played with his heart and head remorselessly. He would be free now that she was gone.

 

The sell they had locked him in wasn’t too uncomfortable for his liking – Jeremiah hadn’t often thought about what it would be to be locked inside a sell, but it did certainly match all his nonexistent expectations.

 

And he did have some entertainment there – some cops doing their best to intimidate him by rattling the bars, but it was nothing if not just slightly amusing. Maybe be if he asked nicely they’d let him see Bruce.

 

”After you get bored with rattling the bars of my sell, could you tell your captain that I’d like to speak to him,” Jeremiah told the group of cops calmly. ”It does seem like you don’t have anything better to do.”

 

He got no verbal answer, but a lot of them sneered before the one making the noise walked over to where James Gordon was looking rather pissed while speaking with his sidekick. His mood didn’t seem to lighten up after hearing Jeremiah’s request.

 

”Don’t you have work to do?” Jim asked the cops who were still loitering around his sell, effectively making them scarce. ”Did you need something.”

 

”I’d like to press charges against Bruce Wayne’s butler,” Jeremiah told the captain, not fully serious, but looking for another source of amusement. ”I mean, look at my face.” Jeremiah hadn’t really had a chance to look into the mirror, however he imagined he looked quite horrid. Some nurses had cleaned up the wounds in his face after he had been brought to the precinct, but that was really all he knew about the state of his face.

 

”I think you look great,” James told him.

 

”You may think so, but your opinion is hardly relevant,” Jeremiah hummed. ”Talking about people whose opinions _are_ relevant – I’d like to speak to Bruce again. We really didn’t have time to chat earlier, with his girlfriend gasping for dear life and his brute of a butler deciding to bash my head in for no good reason at all.”

 

”You think you’re real funny, don’t you?”

 

Jeremiah tilted his head. ”No, I think that was more Jerome’s shtick,” he said. ”I was going for the more intelligent twin, with brains and plans.”

 

”And yet both of you got caught,” Jim said with a sarcastic grin. ”Forget about talking to Bruce – you’re going straight to Arkham and will never see him again. Should’ve said your good byes when you had the chance.”

 

Oh just the thought of never getting to see Bruce again made Jeremiah’s skin crawl – to think that the arrogant cop had the guts to even insinuate… Jeremiah couldn’t wait for Jim Gordon to just die. Cockroaches could be killed, he knew, it just took a little more poison and a little harsher methods, but Jeremiah could do it, he knew he could.

 

_They all just want Bruce to themselves, they’re unworthy, they’re disgusting, they all know what they’d do if they had the chance with him, they need to go go go. Like the rat cat girl, like Jerome, they’ll all regret even glancing at Bruce._

 

”It really would be a shame if another bomb would go off,” Jeremiah said thoughtfully. ”Really would be disappointing – and bad for you detective! I heard you were already boasting on about how you disrupted my chain of bombs, imagine if one would go off now, what would that do to your reputation.”

 

”There are no more bombs, you’re just bluffing,” Jim said harshly.

 

”You’re quite sure about that detective,” Jeremiah noted. ”You do have all my maze bombs, that’s true. But I’m not stupid enough to not build other ones, just for back ups, just in case something goes wrong.”

 

Gordon still didn’t look convinced. He would just have to learn the hard way.

 

”So bring me my dear Bruce Wayne,” Jeremiah told him. ”Or learn the hard way. You’re choice.”

 

Gordon was clenching his jaw. _Bet he would love to punch us now_ , Jeremiah couldn’t help the snicker. _He does have a tendency for violence. Maybe it’s a cop thing – maybe one can’t graduate as a cop without some anger management problems._

 

”He’s not yours,” Gordon told him with narrowed eyes. ”And don’t call him dear.”

 

”What, you think he’s yours?” Jeremiah asked. ”Oh Captain, I do believe there’s a name for that condition and it’s not exactly flattering – or legal.”

 

”Just because you and your entire family seem to be sick in the head doesn’t mean everybody else is too,” Gordon snapped at him. ”Have fun at Arkham.”

 

Jeremiah ran his tongue over his teeth as he watched Gordon turn around and walk away. ”You’re wrong!” he called after the detective. _He is ours_.

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah would’ve paid anything to see the look on Gordon’s face when the city hall blew up thanks to Ra’s a Ghul. But no matter – he did get to experience Gordon’s anger and rage as the man punched him repeatedly in the face, trying to get him to spill out the location of the rest of the bombs.

 

Cute – all it took was one big boom and they would instantly assume there would be more. _We did insinuate it, didn’t we?_

 

”Where are the other bombs?” Gordon asked him, hands fisted in the front of Jeremiah’s jacket ( _excuse him, but that jacket was expensive_ ), while holding him to a wall.

 

”You know, this is a position I wouldn’t mind being in with Bruce Wayne,” Jeremiah snickered. ”Speaking of which, can I see him?”

 

Another punch, this time harder than the previous ones. ”Just tell me where the bombs are so I can lock you up in a sell where you can rot for the rest of your days.”

 

”Or you can let me speak to Bruce Wayne and have the same result,” Jeremiah told him, licking his lips before grinning again. ”Tick tock captain – bring me what I want and you can be assured that nobody else gets hurt today.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the end it hadn’t taken much for Gordon to prevail and to let him see his dear dear Bruce – just getting an actual government major to come down and do the smart thinking for Gordon.

 

They had strapped him down into something that looked it belonged to Hannibal Lecter – Jeremiah thought he probably should take that as a compliment, but then again maybe not, because Hannibal Lecter was sick in the head where Jeremiah was not.

 

It didn’t bother Jeremiah, though – because almost as soon as he was being securely held down, the door to the room opened to reveal Bruce Wayne.

 

His eyes were brimmed with red and the bags under them were big enough to carry groceries. His hair was messy and judging by the overall state of his face it was apparent that the boy had been crying previously. Jeremiah only hoped his tears hadn’t been shred for that damned Selina Kyle.

 

But it didn’t stop Bruce from taking Jeremiah’s breath away – he was still the most ravishing person Jeremiah had ever laid his eyes on. He wasn’t sure what it said about other people if Bruce looked better than them even after a night without sleep and too many tears shred.

 

”They told me you wanted to see me,” Bruce told him, his voice rough and barely there. ”I told them I didn’t want to see you.” Bruce took slow steps towards him, but stopped after taking only few.

 

Jeremiah raised his eyebrows. ”Oh?” he hummed. ”And why is that.”

 

”Because she’s dead,” Bruce sounded like he was going to start crying again soon, but stopped himself. Bruce looked away from Jeremiah while biting his lip, as though keeping himself from starting to yell and cry and rage.

 

Jeremiah could take Bruce’s yells. He’d gladly take his tears and his anger – but he hated Bruce’s silence. ”Don’t tell me you hate me because of _that_ ,” Jeremiah drawled, scoffing a little. ”You and I both know she was bad for your health. Best for you to get rid of her now than after she’s destroyed you completely.”

 

”Where are the other bombs Jeremiah?” Bruce ignored him.

 

”Would you please come a bit closer,” Jeremiah requested, and oddly enough, the young billionaire turned his eyes back to Jeremiah and took a few steps closer. ”Closer.” Jeremiah swore he could feel the slightest breeze of Bruce’s breath on his face, but Bruce refused to come any closer than that. It was enough for Jeremiah.

 

”Where are the other bombs?” Bruce asked again, and Jeremiah licked his lips, almost laughing.

 

Gullible – that’s what most police were. Bruce of course knew the answer already, had known for a while, but he just wanted to see Jeremiah again, didn’t he? ”What bombs?” Jeremiah tilted his head a little.

 

Bruce blinked. ”The other bombs you’re hiding – the ones you used to blow up the mayor’s office with.”

 

”Oh, right. That was the only one,” Jeremiah said, a small smile trying to creep it’s way to his face. ”Got you here, didn’t it?”

 

Bruce suddenly lept forward and wrapped his fingers around the collar of Jeremiah’s jacket. _Okay hot, not complaining_. ”Can you please tell me why you’re doing this?” Bruce asked, the tough and angry facade he was trying to maintain almost collapsing as his voice cracked. He almost sounded sad.

 

Jeremiah tilted his head and pouted. ”You still don’t know why?” he asked, and Bruce shook his head.

 

Bruce wouldn’t lie to him, would he? But Jeremiah had been so sure, so certain that Bruce had known precisely what he was planning, what he was preparing. Bruce was smart enough to realize it – by not asking questions he could pretend to be innocent and keep his conscious. So why was he lying now?

 

Was it because of the guards? Because there was a camera recording them? There was no need to pretend anymore. They would all know soon enough, why was Bruce still pretending?

 

”I don’t believe you,” Jeremiah said. ”You’re not that naive – there was no way you could have not known. You’re smarter than – you’re better than that.”

 

”I trusted you – I had no reason to doubt anything you were doing,” Bruce said, clenching his teeth. He was quiet for a while, before letting go of Jeremiah’s jacket and taking a step back. Jeremiah immediately missed the feel of his breath and the warm vibrations of his body. ”But if you got me here for no reason at all – I guess it’s time for me to go and for you to be locked in to Arkham.”

 

”Whatever the truth may be – if you just blindly put your trust in me or if you really knew about the bombs, it still doesn’t change the most important thing,” Jeremiah said, stopping Bruce before he even had the chance to consider leaving.

 

_He can’t leave, not again, not ever again, he’ll have to stay with us, by our side, we’ll sow his skin to ours if that’s what it takes for him to stay and never leave._

 

”I’m assuming that you’ll explain right away and I won’t have to ask what you mean.”

 

It truly was a miracle that the cops hadn’t pulled Bruce out of the room as soon as they had heard Jeremiah reveal that there was no bombs – or maybe it wasn’t. Jeremiah just assumed it was all doings of Ra’s a Ghul.

 

”Soon, yes,” Jeremiah agreed. ”But for now… I think it would be best for the two of us to ditch this joint and move to somewhere more private.”

 

The guards watching them seemed to realize the implications of Jeremiah’s words and moved to stop Jeremiah from doing anything, but they were too slow. In the blink of an eye the interrogation room became pitch black – as planned – and Jeremiah himself couldn’t believe the easiness of the escape they pulled.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jeremiah had almost doubted whether or not they could pull off the escape – after all, as a more or less man of science, he still refused to believe that the ’magic’ performed by Ra’s a Ghul was nothing more than sleight of hand, a hocus pocus if you will. But he would allow the man to keep his secrets. They hardly mattered to him after all.

 

What did matter, was that Bruce was right there next to him, albeit a bag over his head to stop him from seeing where they were going, but close enough to touch and feel and close enough for Jeremiah to never let him get too far away ever again.

 

”Don’t worry Bruce,” Jeremiah told him as they were walking towards the space where Ra’as was waiting. ”Soon everything will fall into place, with you by my side and with the help of that… other guy.” Jeremiah still wasn’t entirely contempt with having to share this moment with somebody other than Bruce, but he would have to make do.

 

Bruce had been mostly calm during the ride from the precinct – at first he had struggled and fought back, but Jeremiah had back up. Of course he didn’t allow them to hurt Bruce, no, no, never hurt Bruce, but they had to make sure he didn’t try any funny business.

 

Like escape, but Jeremiah failed to see why he would want to do that.

 

”The other guy?” Bruce asked, his voice muffled by the bag, speaking out for the first time since they left.

 

”You know him – but I do like to keep somethings as a surprise so… you’ll just have to wait for a second,” Jeremiah smiled, although knowing that Bruce couldn’t see it. _What’s the point of smiling if he’s not there to see it? He’s the only one worthy enough to smile at._

 

The voice inside his head did make some good points occasionally, even while sounding like Jerome. But truth be told, Jeremiah wasn’t sure if he even remembered what Jerome’s voice sounded like, or if it was just identical to his own. Maybe the two had forged in together, to create some sick hybrid of both him and Jerome inside his head.

 

No, Jerome had nothing to do with anything, he was dead and gone and Jeremiah outlived him and would out-do him in everything as well.

 

Jeremiah led Bruce through the plastic curtains, where Ra’s a Ghul was waiting for them, looking out of the large windows of the view down. Gotham bridges, the one way in and out of the city and the one thing that connected them to the rest of the world. There was a time when Jeremiah though that this dark view of Gotham during the night, with lights standing out like stars in the sky, was beautiful. In a contemporary way that most big cities were, not in the same way as old towns with castles and walls made of rocks and gardens with actual living plants were beautiful.

 

But not anymore – now the view just reminded Jeremiah of pain and suffering and his brother’s reign of terror and madness and chaos and the way he laughed in the face of everything he came across. The view of the city reminded him of all the ways Jerome hurt him during their childhood, of all the ways he hurt him when they were separated, by keeping him always on the edge of his seat, not ever letting him sleep peacefully, always dreading the worst.

 

But most of all the city reminded him of the way it had treated Bruce – taken away his parents, made him grow up too fast, fed him lies and manipulated him, hurt him in any way imaginable. Threatened his life, the life of the people he had cared about, gotten his hopes up before crushing them, tried to break away his spirit.

 

Jeremiah would tear all of that down, take away the pain he and Bruce had endured for the majority of their lives and build something new to replace all it. He would build a city where he and Bruce could live together, live forever, not having to be reminded of the painful past at every corner. They would hurt the city back for hurting them.

 

Ra’s a Ghul turned around just in time for Jeremiah to rip the bag from Bruce’s head, and the boy immediately froze in shock as he took in the sight of the older man.

 

”Ho-how is he here?” Bruce asked, not taking his eyes off of Ra’s. ”You’re dead.”

 

”Let’s get real for a second here Bruce, name one person you can remember to have stayed dead recently?” Jeremiah scoffed, reluctantly leaving Bruce’s side to walk over to the window. ”It shouldn’t be _that_ much of a shock.”

 

”How did you two-?”

 

”Find each other?” Ra’s answered Bruce’s questing and started monologuing like a typical villain. Boring to be completely honest, but Jeremiah could give the man this moment for now. ”I trust all went smoothly?” the last part was directed at him.

 

”Like clockwork,” Jeremiah hummed. Had he really expected anything less? ”Did your men retrieve my bombs?”

 

”They are en route to their positions as we speak.” Jeremiah didn’t like the way the man had stepped close to Bruce, _put his hands on him_ , but he would just have to suffer through it. Sure Ra’s had managed to make Bruce commit a murder, but when it came down to it, Ra’s didn’t have anything on Bruce, not the way Jeremiah did.

 

Ra’s started guiding Bruce towards the window, while Bruce seemed to be reluctant to follow, trying to lean back every time the man pushed him forwards. Eventually Ra’s was forced to let his grip go, and Jeremiah felt like he could breathe again. ”From here, we can take in the full majesty of Gotham’s destruction.”

 

”You’re both insane,” Bruce told them calmly, looking more irritated than anything.

 

Jeremiah could relate to that – Ra’s a Ghul really was just a tad too much in his eyes. Profesies and visions, his little magic tricks and all that… it all really just screamed like a con-artist waiting to be revealed to be completely fake. But Ra’s had manage to get Jeremiah on his side. There was no way somebody could know that much about him without having known him since the circus. So Jeremiah would have to give the man the benefit of the doubt.

 

”You know Bruce, I’m getting really tired of being called mentally deranged,” Jeremiah sighed, taking a few steps towards Bruce. ”Jerome was the insane one – compare the two of us and you’ll see that we’re nothing alike, my brother and I.”

 

” _ **Except that you have his voice taunting and cheering you on every step of the way.”**_ Ra’s had somehow even known that – he had known _everything._ Meaning he probably knew everything and more about Bruce too, and more than Jeremiah ever could and that was not good.

 

”That logic only applies if you think there’s only one form of madness,” Bruce said, trying to lean back again as both Jeremiah and Ra’s closed in on him.

 

_He just doesn’t want Ra’s dirty hands on him, and that’s okay. They’ll be gone soon. We’ll cut them off if we have to. In the matter of minutes, the only person to be touching Bruce ever again will be us._

 

”Doesn’t mean I’m not bored with the same arguments and insults every time you throw them in my face. Try something more creative next time, if you repeat an insult for long enough, it won’t hurt anymore.”

 

”I’m not trying to hurt you, just stating the facts,” Bruce told him.

 

Jeremiah almost wanted to smile. So he and Bruce were on the same page at least on one thing – it would be awful to hurt one another.

 

”Jeremiah’s mental state isn’t the important thing here today,” Ra’s interrupted them, putting his arm around Jeremiah’s shoulder again, and okay, two could play that game. Jeremiah followed suit by putting his own hand on Bruce’s other shoulder, just to remind the older man that he was still there, Bruce wasn’t _his_ , he never were, he never will be, so do what you got to do and everyone will be happy. ”I’m sure there will be plenty of time for you two to talk about that in the near future. Tonight is all about the destruction of Gotham, the fire and the flames and how a new city will be born from the ashes, like a majestic phoenix.”

 

”As cliche as that sounds, I think you now know why I bother with this guy,” Jeremiah mused, squeezing Bruce’s shoulder tighter. ”With Gotham burning to the ground, we get to finally live the life we were always destined to. You and me, side by side, even if I have to melt our skins together to stop you from getting too far away.”

 

”And you’re telling me that doesn’t sound even the slightest bit mad?” Bruce asked him, staring at Jeremiah deeply into his eyes. His eyes seemed to be searching for something, as if trying to catch a glimpse of the man Jeremiah used to be behind his ruined eyes.

 

”Don’t leave me and I won’t have to go that far.”

 

Bruce scoffed and finally looked away, biting the inside of his cheek. Jeremiah kept his eyes trained on the side of Bruce’s face, imagining how from this day forward he would have this sight forever.

 

”It would seem that we have an intruder alert ready to blow,” Ra’s interrupted, making Jeremiah shoot a glare at him. ”It won’t matter – they won’t get far with the guards we placed all over the building. By the time they have the chance to get here – if they win against my men of course – Gotham will be just a pile of ash.”

 

 


	7. 6. ask me why and I'll spit in your eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this time i updated a little quicker, but i actually liked writing this chapter, so it was quickly done. i was going to finish this last night, but then i went to see pet sematary, which wasn't really all that scary btw or i just have a big urge to fuckin die, but idk. hope you like this chapter, cause i do :D

**Chapter 6**

 

It was all too much. The sounds of alarms, cars, citizens panicking, police cars, fire trucks and ambulances all competing against time, while a manic laughter filled Bruce’s ears, trying to drown out the noises around him. He could smell fire and smoke. Bruce could taste blood on his tongue and he was sure someone was pulling him forward while holding his hand way too tightly.

 

The last hour had been a blue – had it even been an hour? The bridges had exploded, burned, collapsed, cutting all ways in and out, quarantining Gotham from the rest of the world. Alfred had come for him with Oswald Cobblepot and Barbara Kean. Ra’s a Ghul was dead, again.

 

Somebody was pulling him into a car. No, not a somebody, not anybody or a nobody, but Jeremiah. Bruce hadn’t even noticed it was him who had pulled him away from the chaos when the bridges collapsed, hadn’t even bothered to fight.

 

Jeremiah wasn’t looking at him when he closed the door to the backseat of the sleek black car. Somebody else was driving, a woman, a blonde one. It was Ecco. Bruce remembered Ecco, even with his muddled brain, even while feeling like he had been drugged.

 

”Have I been drugged?” Bruce wondered out loud, holding his head in his hands, while Jeremiah turned to look at him calmly as the car started moving.

 

”Now at what point did I have time to do that?” Jeremiah answered him, still holding his hand but not as tight anymore. It was a feather like touch, one Bruce wouldn’t have even noticed if it wasn’t for the thumb rubbing soothing circles into te backside of his palm.

 

What right did Jeremiah have to try and calm him down, try to sooth him when he was feeling distressed? He was the cause of it all, the roots and the top of the growing mayhem around them.

 

Jeremiah was still looking at Bruce, staring at him, like he always seemed to be. Bruce couldn’t remember being in the same space with the older man and not feeling his gaze following his every movement like a hawk, like he was trying to memorize every way his body swayed and swirled as he went about his day. Bruce couldn’t bring himself to look back at Jeremiah anymore.

 

Because he looked so similar, yet so drastically different to the person Bruce knew, or thought he had known over the past two months. The person Bruce had trusted, dared to even care about. It was better that Jeremiah didn’t bother to cover his appearance – Bruce didn’t think he could bare the pain of having to look at the man he had known once who had betrayed him, his father and the city.

 

Even his father had trusted Jeremiah, _fuck_. Had he really always been this deranged or had Jerome succeeded after all? Bruce wanted to believe that the gas had done its job, and that was the reason why Jeremiah acted this way, because the thought of him always being so… so… so fucked up pained Bruce more than anything.

 

He would do anything for a cure – he would pay anything, would forgive Jeremiah everything, if there just were a cure for his madness.

 

”Then why do I feel like I’ve been fucking roofied?” Bruce snapped, sitting up and glaring at Jeremiah, who sat there next to him, closer than necessary, closer than it was safe in a moving vehicle, still staring at him calmly, like he adored Bruce, like he _loved_ him.

 

_This is nowhere near similar to love – whatever Jeremiah’s fixation with me is, it’s the oppostite of love._

 

”No need to use such harsh language _Bruce_ ,” Jeremiah said, his voice as placid and monotone as ever, yet still saying Bruce’s name like it was holy, stretching it as long as he could, as if he was trying to savor it on his tongue before letting it out into the world. ”Nobody has roofied you – you’re probably just overwhelmed. After all, it must be very sudden to have everything you never knew you wanted and needed suddenly in your finger tips, ready for you to grab it and claim it as yours.”

 

”Trust me when I say that I want none of this!” Bruce said, his brain finally starting to register that _fuck_ , he was in a car with Jeremiah and Ecco, driving to _who the fuck knows where_ with no guarantee that somebody was following them, tracking them, aware that Bruce had been dragged along with Jeremiah.

 

Alfred had noticed, of course he had, please let him have noticed.

 

”Now let me out of this car!” Bruce all but shrieked, before trying to rip the car door open.

 

Jeremiah tsked, before pulling Bruce away from the handle, holding his wrists in a tight grip, with Bruce's back against Jeremiah’s front in an awkward position thanks to both of them sitting next to each other with their heartbeats on. _I can’t even remember putting it on, but Jeremiah most likely took care of it._

 

”Now that isn’t smart at all,” Jeremiah hummed, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. ”I know you’re distressed – but you needn’t to be. Everything is going to just fine Bruce.”

 

”Oh like hell it will!” Bruce scoffed, trying to wiggle his wrists out of Jeremiah’s strong grip. Fortunately the older man let go willingly and scooted lightly back – Bruce assumed he believed that Bruce wouldn’t try to jump out of a moving car again. ”Where are we going? Why did you take me with you? Is Alfred still alive? What about Jim? Or-”

 

”As intelligent as I am, I’m not all knowing,” Jeremiah held his hands in front of him. ”My men weren’t allowed to kill your precious little butler unless necessary – I won’t promise the same for Ra’s men. When it comes to Gordon, however? I certainly wish somebody offed him already, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Cockroaches are a menace to get rid of after all.” Bruce didn’t like the cruel way Jeremiah smirked after the last comment.

 

”Where are we going and why am I here with you?” Bruce gritted out, glancing out of the car window. It was dark, but Bruce could see that they had exited the center of the city. They were somewhere closer to the woods, but far from the Wayne manor. Well, the manor wasn’t exactly _inside_ the city border, but they for sure were on the opposite side of the city than the manor.

 

”All good things come to those who wait,” Jeremiah said as he took a more comfortable position in his seat. ”Be a good boy and I’ll tell you where we are. And as to why I dragged you with me – you came willingly, if I may add – I do not think there’s a better place for you to be in this city, or this world.”

 

”Than where?”

 

A smile flashed on Jeremiah’s face. ”Than with me. Near me. Against me. I meant what I said Bruce – I’ll melt our skins together if that’s what it takes for you to never leave me again.”

 

The car stopped. Ecco got out of the car with Jeremiah following suit, and Bruce didn’t see another option than to do what they were doing. He doubted protesting against Jeremiah by not getting out of a car would help his case too much. Besides, when making an escape plan, it was good to know where your captors were at all times.

 

”You say you’re not insane, but then you say something like that and it’s really hard to believe you,” Bruce told Jeremiah as he slammed the car door closed with a little too much force.

 

They were in a garage of some kind – at least that’s what Bruce assumed it was. All it really was was a somewhat large room made of concrete, with a few monitors that showed the view of the forest outside, two other cars, a large cabinet made out of metal and an elevator door.

 

Jeremiah stared at Bruce with a calculating stare before snorting lightly. ”You may not see things the way I do yet, but when you do it won’t sound so _insane_ anymore,” Jeremiah told him, straightening the black suit jacket he was wearing.

 

A sound of heels made Bruce look away from Jeremiah. Ecco had walked over to the cabinet and opened it with a key, now going looking through it, trying to find something. ”Where are we?” Bruce asked, looking back to Jeremiah, who too was looking over at Ecco.

 

”Beginning to sound like a broken record, now are we?” Jeremiah told him with a small grin. His face was still recovering from the beating he received from Alfred. The dark bruises contrasted with his pale skin, making the man look even more inhuman and disturbing than he already did with his white as sheets skin and unnaturally grey eyes.

 

”That doesn’t answer my question,” Bruce told Jeremiah, looking around the room. There didn’t seem to be any other way out of the room than the elevator doors – from where they had come in, Bruce was unsure, but he supposed that one of the walls had to have a secret passage way somewhere.

 

Be as it may, there was no way to escape, at least not from the space they were in now.

 

The sound of heels on concrete echoed around the room again. Ecco had closed the cabinet again and was returning to them again, her face as stoic and emotionless as ever, seemingly not blinking even once as she crossed the small distance from the cabinet to where Bruce and Jeremiah were standing next to the car. She was holding something in her hands, but Bruce couldn’t make out exactly what it was.

 

”Ah, now we can get moving again,” Jeremiah smiled at Bruce, extending his hand towards Ecco.

 

”What are you-” Bruce didn’t have time to finish his sentence before a handcuf was locked way too tightly around his left wrist. Jeremiah locked the other one on his own right, before testing out that it didn’t give out.

 

”There, all good,” he said, visibly pleased. ”I may not be able to sow or melt our skins together, but I suppose being locked together for the time being will be more than fine.” Jeremiah handed the key over to Ecco, who put it in her coat pocket.

 

* * *

 

Bruce had read it somewhere that by dislocating your thumb it could be possible to break out from handcuffs. It should’ve been an easy task, considering that his right hand was still free. But it did turn out to be harder than he had anticipated, considering that the other half of the cuffs was on Jeremiah’s wrist, and he didn’t make it at all easy for Bruce to fight out.

 

”Would you calm down and stop acting like a child,” Jeremiah growled, beginning to feel irritated with Bruce’s antics – enough so that he slammed Bruce’s head against the wall with enough force to make the younger boy dizzy again.

 

Jeremiah had dragged Bruce over to the elevator with him fighting tooth and nail to get out of the cuffs and far away from Jeremiah’s reach. Even if Bruce had managed to get out of the cuffs, it would’ve been useless anyway, with Ecco trailing after them, watching them like a hawk. As soon as the doors had closed behind them, the elevator had begun to descent down instead of going up, indicating that wherever Jeremiah was taking him, it was underground.

 

Bruce leaned against the wall he had just been slammed against, holding his other hand against his head, as if that would ease the throbbing pain. For the record, it didn’t. ”Funny how you say you don’t want to hurt me, but don’t hesitate to cause me a fucking concussion,” Bruce said with a groan, as the elevator finally came to a halt.

 

”You were acting like a brat Bruce my love,” Jeremiah said with his mouth on a thin line as the doors slid open again. Ecco left the elevator first, disappearing around the corner. Jeremiah begun to drag Bruce to the opposite direction.

 

It was very similar to the maze Jeremiah had lived in, yet not exactly. The hallways weren’t as narrow and there were more doors and more turns and it was obvious the whole structure was smaller than the original one. The color scheme also was darker, the walls painted dark grey as the lights shone in the shades of purple.

 

Bruce’s legs felt weak as he was being dragged through the hallways, while he did his best to weakly fight back, try to pull into the other direction, with the knowledge that it did little to no good for his case.

 

”I don’t hit you every time you act like a brat,” Bruce argued back weakly, his head still throbbing.

 

”When did I last act like a brat, Bruce?” Jeremiah stopped in front of a door, which he opened with a key before pulling Bruce inside.

 

”Well maybe not a brat but a psychotic criminally insane douchebag, yes,” Bruce said, leaning against the door after Jeremiah closed it behind them.

 

It was a simple bedroom with a king-sized bed, a closet, a bookshelf, nightstand, a computer and a walk in bathroom. The room was colored like the rest of the new maze was, with dark walls and purple lights. The only contrast was the white sheets of the bed and the white tiles of the bathroom.

 

_He seriously doesn’t expect me to sleep and live in the same room with him, now does he?_

 

”Colorful language again, I see,” Jeremiah hummed, pulling Bruce along with him again. Bruce tried struggling again, even though it was futile with the handcuff wrapped around his wrist.

 

Jeremiah came to a halt at the foot of the large bed, turning to face Bruce with an unreadable expression on his face. Thanks to the handcuffs around their wrists, there was little to no personal space between the two, making Bruce feel alarmed and anxious. He was used to not being able to read Jeremiah – the man had never been an open book, not when Bruce still thought he was all good and sane, and definitely not now. But to Jeremiah’s credit, it did seem that he was more open and confident than he was before he had been sprayed with the gas.

 

Bruce only wished that he could’ve experienced that side to Jeremiah without the man being a mentally deranged murderer. He wished he could’ve seen all sides there was to Jeremiah, with the bridges still standing, with Selina still alive and well and without Jeremiah having a criminal record.

 

Jeremiah brought his free hand to Bruce’s face, making him flinch slightly back. Jeremiah frowned at the movement, tilting his head to the side as he seemed genuinely sad and concerned. ”No need to worry or be frightened Bruce,” he assured, his thumb drawing patterns over Bruce’s skin. ”Hurting you is not on my do to list.”

 

”I’m not. Frightened, I mean,” Bruce pursed his lips stubbornly. ”I just want home. I’m tired and I want to know that my friends are okay.”

 

Jeremiah rolled his eyes at Bruce’s words. ”You shouldn’t worry about people who do not worry about you the same amount,” Jeremiah told him.

 

”They do worry about me – Alfred and Jim are already tracking us down, I’m sure-”

 

”Yes, they definitely are,” Jeremiah said with a laugh, dropping his hand from Bruce’s face, instead taking Bruce’s own free hand in his grasp and lifting it up to his face. His touch was surprisingly gentle and cautious and Bruce was even more surprised when Jeremiah kissed the tip of his fingertips lightly. ”But out of duty and obligation, not because they’re genuinely concerned. Think about it – Gordon is a cop, it’s his job description to keep the citizens safe. Him trying to find you is nothing personal and it doesn’t make you special, it doesn’t mean he _cares_ about you. Gordon promising you he’ll solve your parents’ murder was nothing but him wanting to cash in on the case of the century.”

 

”Now listen here-”

 

”With your butler it may be slightly more personal, but at the end of the day, he too is on your payroll. You stopped paying him for his services and he would be out of the door in a second and wouldn’t come back unless you started paying him again.” Jeremiah was still playing with his fingers, a gentle smile on his face, while Bruce had to bite his lip and fight the tears that were threatening to fall out.

 

Jeremiah was wrong. He was wrong, wrong, _wrong_. He knew nothing – he had no right to pretend he knew Bruce’s life, his relationships and his experiences better than Bruce did himself. He was just trying to manipulate him. That’s all it was. An emotionally abusive attack, one that hit hard where it was aimed.

 

Because yes, with all his confidence and money, Bruce still sometimes laid awake at night, wondering if he had anyone if he didn’t have his money. Jim probably wouldn’t have been so invested in his parents’ case if they hadn’t been rich. They would just have been another couple dead in Gotham’s streets. Bruce wouldn’t even know Alfred if he wasn’t his butler. If he didn’t pay him. Bruce had already succeeded pushing Alfred away once. Alfred was ready to leave at anytime, it was proven already. Everybody Bruce had ever cared about – Alfred, Jim, Selina, Lucius, you name it – had entered his life, both directly and indirectly, thanks to Bruce being rich.

 

”You’re wrong,” Bruce swallowed, trying to blink away his tears. He shouldn’t listen to Jeremiah’s words – he knew what they were, he knew this tactic, he knew better than to fall for it. ”There are people who care about me, even without my money.”

 

”I never said that there wasn’t,” Jeremiah said quietly, interlocking their fingers. ”But I only know one.”

 

Bruce clenched his jaw and tried to even his breathing. ”That’s an abuse tactic, everybody know that,” he said, taking his hand away from Jeremiah’s grasp. ”It’s not true.”

 

”And yet it’s obvious you believe every single word,” Jeremiah hummed, seemingly not bothered by Bruce’s accusation. ”You seem tired darling. Maybe you should go to sleep.”

 

Yes, he was right for once. Bruce was exhausted. He felt like if he fell asleep now, he’d be likely to wake up in five months and still feel tired. But Bruce didn’t want to sleep – not now, not while he was here, with Jeremiah, in the same room and him and with him being so close.

 

Bruce glanced at the bed behind them. ”Not with you,” he said stubbornly. ”Take these handcuffs on and I’ll sleep on the floor.”

 

Jeremiah sighed, clearly tired of the banter. ”Why do you have to be so childish,” Jeremiah shook his head. ”I do not have the key, you know this.”

 

”I’m not sharing a bed with you!”

 

”It’s not like it would even be the first time,” Jeremiah reasoned, making Bruce’s entire body tense up as he registered the words coming out of the man’s mouth.

 

 _What did he mean it wasn’t the first time?_ ”Excuse me?” Bruce asked, gritting his teeth again. Bruce seemed to be on an emotional roller-coaster – two minutes ago he had been tearing up, almost sobbing at Jeremiah’s words, now he felt like seething with anger.

 

”Oh, don’t act like you don’t already know! The oblivious act is cute for a while before it gets old,” Jeremiah told him, a smile appearing on his face again. ”Come on now Bruce. I stayed over at your luxurious little mansion too many times to count! I’d be insane to pass down the opportunity when it presented itself.”

 

It took a few beats for Bruce to fully comprehend what Jeremiah meant by that. The second he did, he wasn’t angry anymore, but instead horrified and downright feeling violated. To think that Jeremiah had sneaked into his room, at night while he was sleeping and laid on his bed with him, doing lord only knows what, while he was completely out of it was the most terrifying and disturbing thing he had ever heard.

 

”You didn’t. No you didn’t,” Bruce shook his head, trying to wiggle out of the cuffs again, to no avail. ”You’re sick. You’re even more sick than your brother, Jeremiah-”

 

That was the first time Jeremiah hit Bruce. In hindsight, he didn’t hit hard, but hard enough for Bruce to quit talking, as his brain struggled to register what had happened. Jeremiah had actually hit him on his cheek. So much for not wanting to hurt Bruce.

 

”Do not compare me to that idiotic lunatic ever again, do you understand Bruce?” Jeremiah said, his eyes closed as it was clear he was seething with anger.

 

Bruce couldn’t believe Jeremiah was being mad at _him_. That in this situation, Jeremiah thought he had more right to be angry and violent, just because Bruce had compared him to his brother. Maybe he was just mad that Bruce was right – he was even more unhinged than Jerome ever was. At least Jerome was sane enough to see the line between obsession and what Jeremiah seemed to be considering love. At least Jerome didn’t pretend to care about Bruce, not even once, never told him lies about not wanting to hurt him because they both knew those were his main intentions.

 

Jeremiah was crazier than his brother was, it was a cold hard fact that Bruce didn’t want to admit. Jerome openly admitted to his sanity, Jeremiah was indenial. Jeremiah had created a fantasy in his mind, where Bruce wanted the same things as him, where they were happy and in love. It made Bruce even more scared of Jeremiah than he had been of Jerome.

 

”Or what, you’ll kill me? Beat the living shit out of me?” Bruce asked him with a bitter laugh. ”I thought you didn’t want to hurt me. Right now it seems that you’re not capable of doing anything else.”

 

Jeremiah clenched his jaw, breathing heavily. After a while of just staring at each other, Jeremiah seemed to visibly calm down, as he ran a hand through his hair and let out a small chuckle, before pulling Bruce forward again. ”Those don’t look like the most comfortable clothes to sleep in. Maybe we should change them.”

 

* * *

 

Bruce wasn’t sure what the time was, as there were no clocks in the room, nor was Jeremiah wearing one, but he assumed that he had been laying awake for at least a few hours. Bruce assumed that by the time he and Jeremiah had left the scene after the bridges had burned, it had been well past midnight, and the drive to the maze they were at currently had been at least forty minutes. To count on top of that all the time Bruce had spent arguing with Jeremiah, he was sure that soon enough sun would rise to mark the beginning of a new day, but Bruce wasn’t able to see it.

 

He and Jeremiah had all but wrestled after Jeremiah had suggested Bruce to take off his clothes. What had he expected? Bruce to nod enthusiastically and immediately start undressing himself? It seemed like that’s the scenario Jeremiah had envisioned in his head.

 

Truth be told, taking off a person’s clothes while they were struggling and handcuffed to another person seemed like and impossible task, but Jeremiah had managed it after a while. Bruce had gotten in a few good kicks and hits, only to be met with ones as well, but they had mattered very little when Jeremiah had pulled out a knife. At this point Bruce wasn’t willing to count on the fact that Jeremiah wouldn’t kill him, but laying still as the man cut off his clothing seemed like the worse thing he could’ve done. Bruce would have never forgiven himself for that, and that’s why he was now filled with very shallow cuts and scratched from where Jeremiah had accidentally cut his skin while attempting to cut his shirt off. After Bruce had first started bleeding, Jeremiah had stopped completely, looking at the flowing blood with an expression so disturbing that Bruce nearly took the knife out the man’s hand and stabbed his eyes out.

 

But he hadn’t done that, and now Bruce laid in a bed that had enough room for both of them to have space even while handcuffed, yet Jeremiah insisted on throwing his arm around Bruce, so they were… spooning. The thought was one of the reasons why he was unable to close his eyes. He was spooning with a fucking murderer, bomber sociopath, with his wrist handcuffed to the one around his waist and he couldn’t figure out a way to escape the situation. To make matters even worse, Jeremiah seemed to be sleeping soundly and peacefully, which was odd considering that he had told Bruce he rarely ever slept more than four hours and even the slightest amount of sleep he got was mostly restless. And Bruce might’ve been naive, he might’ve been innocent and stupid to think so, but he refused to believe that Jeremiah had lied to him about _everything_. He refused to believe that the man he had genuinely liked and considered one of his closest friends, _his best friend_ , even after a few months, would only feed him lies during the time they were together. Because if he had gathered anything about Jeremiah during these few days, it was that he seemed to at least believe he cared about Bruce. Jeremiah was under the illusion that the two of them were meant to be together, that they were _in love_ for fucks sake, so wouldn’t it make all the time they spent together mean absolutely nothing if all that had been between them was just lies?

 

The heat radiating from Jeremiah combined with the thick, warm blanket shouldn’t have been enough to make Bruce feel uncomfortably hot and sweaty, considering that he slept better when he was just slightly too warm. But Bruce supposed it wasn’t the heat from the environment that made him sweat his skin off and try to wrestle out of Jeremiah’s hold to cool himself down a bit.

 

”Would you mind staying still for a second please?” Jeremiah said, voice laced with sleep. ”Some of us are trying to sleep.”

 

”Too hot,” Bruce muttered back, trying to settle down, but still finding it hard to be comfortable.

 

Jeremiah just groaned tiredly and said nothing, cuddling closer to Bruce as he tried to fall back asleep. Bruce wondered how the man could be so in ease and relaxed when he never used to be neither, but it was better not to dwell on it. Bruce would just have to remember that all he thought he had known about Jeremiah wasn’t true.

 

”What’s the time?” Bruce asked, not getting an answer out of Jeremiah who just groaned again and tried to pretend like he was asleep. He really could act like a total cockhead when he was tired, couldn’t he?

 

Not that he wasn’t a total cockhead all the time, but especially so when he was groggy with sleep.

 

”Seriously Jeremiah, what’s the time?” Bruce asked again, this time louder and more demanding. ”There aren’t any clocks in here, I want to know what the time is, seriously-”

 

”Why can’t you at least try to sleep?” Jeremiah interrupted Bruce with an irritated tone, as he leaned back a little, loosening his hold on Bruce but never letting go completely.

 

”Because you’re too close to me and it’s making me uncomfortable, I’m too hot, too anxious, I’m worried about my friends and I want to go home.”

 

This time Jeremiah actually let go of Bruce, as he sat up to glare directly at Bruce, who rolled onto his stomach to glare back at Jeremiah with just as much malice. ”Making rich kids happy really is a task, isn’t it?” Jeremiah asked with a scoff.

 

”If I’m more trouble than I’m worth, you should just let me leave,” Bruce told Jeremiah, whose glare softened as a small smile appeared onto his face. Jeremiah brought his free hand onto Bruce’s face, running his fingertips down his cheek, while Bruce did his best not to flinch away.

 

”How stupid of you,” Jeremiah told Bruce, his smile seemingly soft and genuine, painfully reminding him of the Jeremiah Bruce used to know, who was soft and kind and just a memory at this point. ”To think that you’d ever be more trouble than you’re worth.”

 

How a person could go from mean and menacing to soft and kind like pressing on a light switch, Bruce could never understand. But he really couldn’t help the bang of sadness he felt in his chest as he stared at Jeremiah at that moment. Had his skin not been so pale, had his hair been more auburn than blackish green and had his eyes been a dark shade of forest green, Bruce could have made himself believe he was staring into the eyes of Jeremiah Valeska, the brilliant engineer who worked for him, who was smart and shy and kind, and not the Jeremiah Valeska, a serial bomber who had killed Bruce’s girlfriend.

 

If Bruce closed his eyes he could pretend that the soft hand running through his hair would be that of a different man, the one Bruce had trusted a few days ago. If he closed his eyes, Bruce could pretend that the cold lips that suddenly touched his own in a deep but brief kiss would be that of the person he thought he had known.


	8. 7. You're the best thing I've seen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh, I've been working on this chapter for so fucking long it's not even funny. i blame jeremiah's new hot look for it, because every time i see a picture or a video of it, i just close my laptop and go to sleep. i'm still convinced that the whole thing could be saved by some fucking moisturizer, and we know Jeremiah is a regular customer at sephora.

**Chapter 7**

 

Jeremiah felt like a child on Christmas after unwrapping the biggest present under the tree. Like his one wish on his list had been granted, and he could happily go on for the next year or so. The touch of Bruce’s lips against his own was enough to make Jeremiah satisfied for the time being, but he knew that the desire he had felt for the past five years or so only grew stronger with every touch he gave to Bruce.

 

Jeremiah regretted having to hurt Bruce in order to get him to behave. It was understandable that the other was in deep shock and worried about his so called friends, and he would get over it all soon. After he realized he wouldn’t need anybody in his life.

 

It felt like Jeremiah had repeated the same sentence over and over. That he and Bruce didn’t need anybody else and that they could rule Gotham just fine alone. But Jeremiah also knew that life would be slightly difficult, at least while he and Bruce were tied together by their wrists, without Ecco’s help, so Jeremiah would let her stick around for a while longer.

 

Maybe Jeremiah will convince Bruce to kill her when the time is right. But for now he would settle for brushing Bruce’s hair off his face, while he stared down on the expressionless face.

 

Jeremiah had expected a better reaction to the kiss. It didn’t exactly count as their first one, considering that Jeremiah had given Bruce the lightest of pecks in the graveyard, but he could hardly take that slight brush of lips as a kiss. And while the one they shared now wasn’t long either, it was still more passionate even if rather one sided.

 

”What’s on your pretty little mind?” Jeremiah asked Bruce, who sighed before looking away from his face.

 

”Just how long will it take for you to get sick of me,” Bruce admitted, while trying to wiggle a little further away from Jeremiah. The handcuffs of course prevented him from getting too far away, but Jeremiah held onto him with his other hand as well, to make sure Bruce would stay just as close as Jeremiah wanted him.

 

”Why would you think I could ever get sick of you?”

 

”At some point you too need to realize that you and me-” Bruce said, gesturing between the two of them with his free hand. ”do not want the same thing. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself that, we don’t and we never will. You’ll have to put me through extreme amounts of brainwashing and torture before you can get me to even consider looking at things from your twisted perspective. So after you do realize that I won’t ’open my eyes’, as you put it, you won’t have a reason to keep me around anymore. And you’ll just have to get rid of me.”

 

Jeremiah pursed his lips at Bruce’s words. ”Bruce, you’re not here because I need you as a part of my grand scheme of world domination, well I _do_ , but the main reason of you being here, tied to me, is because I love you.” And he really did. Jeremiah might’ve not had many experiences with love – his adoptive family being more or less absent while he went to school, his brother being, well _Jerome_ , and his memories of his real mother being vague at best – but the feeling inside Jeremiah was strangely unfamiliar and comfortingly familiar at the same time. The feeling was both warm and cold at the same time, consuming Jeremiah completely while leaving a hole inside him, like something that was supposed to be there was absent. No amount of proximity was enough for Jeremiah, constantly needing to be closer and closer, wanting to nest himself deep inside Bruce’s skin, feeling as though he would die if Bruce was ever again going to be too far away.

 

If that wasn’t love, Jeremiah wasn’t sure if love existed at all.

 

Bruce looked at him in shock after hearing the three words. ”If you think this is love Jeremiah, I’m afraid you have the wrong understanding of it’s meaning,” Bruce told him.

 

”Well then,” Jeremiah said, leaning away a little, to support himself on his other arm so he wasn’t hovering above Bruce anymore. ”Tell me how would you describe love.”

 

Bruce was quiet for a good while, and Jeremiah was almost convinced that Bruce didn’t know. ”It’s accepting and respecting the other person’s hopes and wishes,” Bruce said then. ”Wanting them to achieve their goals and live their life happily, even if you can’t be a part of it. Going out of your way to make sure they are happy and safe. Realizing that sometimes it’s better for the both of you to let go.”

 

”And have I not done everything in my power to make sure you are happy and safe?”

 

”Do I seem happy to you?” Bruce snapped back at him, getting up from his laying position, supporting his weight on his elbows. ”You killed Selina, you refuse to let me know whether the people I care about are alive and safe or not and you locked me underground with you, even when I multiple times expressed my desire to be let go. Everything you’ve done so far gives me the impression that you care more about the things that make you happy than what make me happy. That feels like the opposite of _love_ , to be completely honest.”

 

”I like to think that sometimes love is knowing what’s best for the other person, better than they know themselves,” Jeremiah said, doing his best to not be riled up by Bruce’s words. Should he get angry again, he wasn’t sure what he would do. ”A mother who loves her children often makes them do things they don’t want to – eat their vegetables, take a bath, wear a helmet while riding a bicycle – all because she loves them and wishes them to be safe and healthy. The children don’t know yet what’s best for them, but the mother does.”

 

”That’s different – that’s parental love. The love you seem to imply feeling towards me shouldn’t be controlling or obsessive, yet it is,” Bruce said, his voice filled with venom. Jeremiah could see the hot, burning anger in his eyes and it was oh, so, so lovely. ”Just accept the fact that you don’t love me, you don’t know what love is and that this whole situation is fucked up and unhealthy.”

 

Jeremiah tilted his head. ”You know, that big talk about brainwashing and torture seem sort of good right now,” Jeremiah said, laughing at Bruce’s furious expression. ”Do not worry Bruce – you’ll come around eventually.”

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah had prepared for the… _disadvantages_ of being handcuffed into Bruce. He figured that all the trouble would be worth in the end and had made sure all necessary precautions were done to make their life just a little bit easier. But Jeremiah hadn’t really thought about Bruce deciding to go limb and refuse to move when Jeremiah attempted to drag him out of bed so they could have a nice little bath.

 

”You really want to make life harder for yourself don’t you?” Jeremiah said through gritted teeth, narrowing his eyes as irritation filled him. Bruce was acting like a little brat again, which was very uncharacteristic for him.

 

”It was you who decided to make life harder when you had the genius idea of handcuffing us together,” Bruce snapped back, kicking his legs in order to slither back further up the bed.

 

Jeremiah sighed. ”You know, I do enjoy your fighting spirit – it’s very attractive,” he told Bruce, who wrinkled his nose in response. ”But right now it’s getting on my nerves. So if you want to act difficult, it’s only fair that I’ll do the same. So. Either you get up and come willingly or I’ll make sure someone out there, be it a common nobody or a professional assassin, offs your dear little butler in the cruelest way possible.”

 

This time it was Bruce’s turn to glare at Jeremiah. ”Oh, so we’re using this tactic now, huh? Using the people I care about to blackmail me into doing things I don’t want to? Fine.” Bruce finally got up from the bed and smoothed out his wrinkled pajama pants. ”But just so you know, with this tactic you’re doomed to run out of people at some point, so if I were you, I’d figure out a new ploy.”

 

”Oh Bruce, stop being naive,” Jeremiah said, rolling his eyes before leading Bruce into the large bathroom. ”I could threaten the life of any innocent civilian in Gotham and you’d be putty in my hands. You’re heroic like that.”

 

The bathroom was probably the only room in the new bunker where Jeremiah had decided to put white walls and light’s that weren’t purple. For the sole purpose that in the colored lighting, Bruce’s skin didn’t have it’s natural pale hue that it did when it reflected the light of the sun or the light of the lamp on his desk.

 

”So you’ll just put the lives of everyone in Gotham city at stake so I’ll do whatever you want?” Bruce turned around to face Jeremiah after he had shut the bathroom door behind them.

 

”If that’s what it takes, yes,” Jeremiah nodded, staring back at Bruce with as much intensity.

 

Bruce let out a bitter laugh. ”Okay, so what do you want me to do now? Get on my knees? Kiss your feet, suck you off, what is it? Do you get off on that thought? That I’ll bend over willingly as soon as you point a trigger at another person?”

 

_Now there’s a thought. He’s already getting on his knees, here’s our chance, take it, take it, take it. He’s doing it willingly, he’s ready to do it, just like we’ve always fantasized, like we dream every night._

 

”Bruce-”

 

”Yet you say that you’re not sick,” Bruce scoffed, before starting to take his pants off, successfully managing to shock Jeremiah. ”Well? I thought we were going to take a bath.”

 

”Bruce, darling, love, I need you to take a breath and calm down,” Jeremiah sighed, taking Bruce’s face into his hands. ”As much as I want everything you said and more for us, I want to you to actually want me back and do it not because you feel like you have to but because you too desire it just as much as I do.”

 

”Oh yeah? Well maybe you’ll just have to take what you can get, because the only way you’ll ever have me is by threatening me.” Bruce seemed to be on a mood swing of some kind, going from zero to one hundred in seconds. Jeremiah supposed it was normal, after all, he was being put into a strange and maybe a slightly worrisome situation, but-

 

Bruce kissed him. Took his face into his hands and pulled it down to the same level with his own, just a few inches but still, and smashed their lips together, harshly, roughly and in every way Jeremiah had always expected him to. Jeremiah felt teeth, he felt tongue and he felt all the pent up anger, frustration, sadness and betrayal Bruce had been feeling since the day at the graveyard.

 

Jeremiah’s mind flatlined for a moment. They had shared a few pecks before, all initiated by Jeremiah, all brief and lacking much of the needed feeling. This kiss was different than them. Not only because Bruce was putting all of his emotion in it.

 

Because he was putting all his negative thoughts into the kiss, not his love and admiration and desire. Jeremiah was fooled for a second, for two, for three, up to ten, kissed him back, before the knowledge that Bruce didn’t kiss him because he too was craving for it, but because he knew he could buy some innocent lives with it.

 

It took all of Jeremiah’s will power to push Bruce back. As soon as the contact of their lips together disappeared, Jeremiah wanted it, he needed it back, and nearly pulled Bruce back in but stopped in the last second.

 

_Why’d you do that?! We had him, we had him right there, where we wanted him, where we’ve always wanted him! You could have him here and now, in every way your imagination lets you, why are you getting so caught up in reasons?_

 

”What, suddenly you’re not interested?” Bruce spat at him, eyes flaming with fury.

 

”Bruce, Bruce, Bruce,” Jeremiah sighed, leaning in again to rest his forehead on Bruce’s as he backed Bruce up to the bathtub and had him sit on the edge of it. ”I want you, I crave you, I dream about you every night and I need you by my side at all times. But more than that I need you to need me back, and you forcing yourself to kiss me won’t give me what I want.”

 

”I already told you that you won’t get what you want,” Bruce told him, his anger not having faded the least bit. With a frustrated sigh, Jeremiah took his phone out of his pocket and called Ecco. She knew to answer immediately.

 

”Would you please bring the key,” Jeremiah told her, not taking his eyes off Bruce for a second. ”I think Bruce’s needs to cool down a bit.”

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah let Bruce take the bath by himself, bringing him clothes into the bathroom before leaving him be. It was easier than trying to calm the fuming boy down by himself. It was clear Bruce still had messed up ideas and thoughts and just needed time to clear his head.

 

Ecco stayed by the door to make sure Bruce didn’t leave the bathroom until Jeremiah had finished his own bath in the other room down the hall. Jeremiah hadn’t been sure if it was necessary to build two, but it seemed to come into use.

 

After both of them were done, Ecco reattached the handcuffs, with Bruce fighting back, but only slightly and not with as much fervour as the last time.

 

”Thank you Ecco, you may leave now,” Jeremiah told her, and she did without words, only shooting Bruce a slight unreadable glance.

 

”Thank you,” Bruce said after Ecco was gone.

 

Jeremiah raised his eyebrows. ”What for?”

 

”For letting me be by myself for a moment,” Bruce said, with his jaw clenched as he glanced at their hands again. ”You can understand that this situation isn’t as easy for me as it is for you.”

 

Another change in behavior and mood. It was almost beginning to get concerning.

 

Almost.

 

Bruce was eyeing the handcuffs wrapped around their wrists with an unreadable expression. ”How long are you planning on keeping me tied to you?” he asked then, looking back at Jeremiah, who of course was already looking at Bruce.

 

Of course Jeremiah was looking at Bruce. He was only ever looking at, looking for Bruce. There was nobody else he’d rather look at, ever, because nobody else possessed even a percentage of the beauty Bruce did. Nobody could ever come close to Bruce, in goodness, in greatness, in beauty or in perfection. Bruce was the only person on Earth who mattered anymore.

 

Not that anybody else had before. Jeremiah wondered how the world could have existed for millions of years without Bruce in it, what did the planet circle around, what had been the center of the universe before Bruce was born. Or did the Universe exist without a clear center only to get one after Bruce was born? It still didn’t explain how the early civilizations could have survived without Bruce, without feeling his presence, without even knowing about his existence. Or the lack there of. Had the people in history felt the same void inside them as Jeremiah did whenever Bruce was away?

 

Maybe that explained all the death in the world – Bruce wasn’t there to give them a reason to live, give them the strength to live or give them a life worth living. Because the only life Jeremiah ever wanted to live was one where Bruce was there, always present, always near and never gone.

 

”I already told you – as long as it takes,” Jeremiah answered. ”As long as it takes for you to feel the way I do and see things like I see them.”

 

Bruce nodded then. ”Forever it is then,” he sighed. ”Will I be fed during this eternity, or will I simply perish in hunger before I have the chance to even consider your views?”

 

* * *

 

Trying to get Bruce to eat was a challenge, Jeremiah discovered. Jeremiah had had Ecco prepare them some breakfast, and while she wasn’t the best chef in the world, nothing compared to Bruce’s dear Alfred, she would have to make do. Jeremiah himself didn’t feel particularly hungry, he never did in fact, but at least he was smart enough to realize that without nutrition, he wouldn’t have enough energy to perform the easiest tasks.

 

Bruce didn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Jeremiah doubted he had actually eaten anything after the scene in the graveyard, yet the boy didn’t seem to be in the mood to do anything other than pushing his eggs and bacon around the plate in front of him.

 

”You know it’s rude to not eat the meal someone else had prepared for you,” Jeremiah commented. ”I almost feel bad for Alfred – I only hope you didn’t treat him the same way.”

 

”Bruce, I know for a fact that you’ve skipped every meal after you left the graveyard,” Jeremiah said, pursing his lips. ”That was two days ago. You need nutrition to survive the day.”

 

”I told you, I’m not hungry.”

 

Jeremiah couldn’t help rolling his eyes. People liked to call Bruce mature for his age, but he for sure was acting like a childish brat at the moment. No matter, Jeremiah wasn’t as bothered as he was annoyed by it. It was… endearing, in a way. It was good to see every side there was to Bruce. How were they supposed to have a healthy relationship, if Jeremiah didn’t know every side there was to Bruce?

 

_We should make him behave. Have him see the consequences for bad behavior. Punish him. Make sure he won’t disobey ever again._

 

”I’ll figure out whether or not your dear old butler is alive if you eat,” Jeremiah bargained, deciding to ignore the voices in his head. For now.

 

_That’s almost as though you’d be rewarding bad behavior. Bargaining with him. Don’t give him treats for deeds he should be doing without complaints._

 

It was like turning on a switch. In a second Bruce had the fork in his hand and he was showing the food into his mouth like it was his last meal and he only had mere moments for devour it.

 

”There, done,” Bruce said after he had finished the eggs and bacon, in a record winning time while Jeremiah had watched in amusement. ”Now, where’s Alfred and is he okay?”

 

”The toast too,” Jeremiah gestured to the piece of bread next to the plate. ”And there really was no need to wolf down the food like that – I said I’ll figure out how things are with Mr Pennyworth. I never implied that I knew his exact fate right now.”

 

Bruce clenched his jaw. ”Well get on with it then – go find out,” Bruce demanded.

 

Jeremiah tilted his head to the side while keeping his eyes on Bruce. ”So demanding,” he teased. ”I could very well take my words back right now, I did get what I want after all – But I won’t, worry not my love.” Jeremiah couldn’t help but laugh as Bruce wrapped his fingers around the bread knife and pointed it at him at the implication that Jeremiah might take his promise back.

 

He was a man of his words and the fact that Bruce doubted him was almost insulting – it would’ve been too, if Jeremiah wasn’t so caught up in how cute Bruce looked his his fingers wrapped around the knife tightly like that ( _wonder what else they’d wrap around so pretty like that, tight and nice_ ) and the grim look on Bruce’s face, which Jeremiah had begun to get used to.

 

It was almost sad in a way. Just a few days ago Bruce wouldn’t have been caught dead looking at Jeremiah like that. The looks Bruce used to give him had always been soft and gentle, and Jeremiah could have made himself believe that Bruce loved him, for nobody else had ever watched him with such tenderness.

 

Jeremiah was ready to pull down the stars and the moon and the sun too if he could have Bruce look at him like that again.

 

Jeremiah pulled his phone out of his pocket and started looking for a number of one of the men who had been present when the bridges collapsed. Jeremiah might’ve burned Jerome’s followers alive, but he would’ve been absolutely mad if he didn’t keep some spies around the city.

 

”Kind of hypocritical of you, to make me eat while you’ve barely touched your own food,” Bruce muttered, but Jeremiah shushed him before pressing the phone onto his ear.

 

Bruce stared at him anxiously, worry and fear sketched onto his face while he played with his fingers and bit his lip. Jeremiah wondered if Bruce ever cared enough about Jeremiah to feel that amount of concern for his well-being.

 

He contemplated on offing Alfred Pennyworth too, just so he wouldn’t have to compete for Bruce’s love and affection. But truth was that Mr Pennyworth had taken good care of Bruce over the years and Jeremiah’s pride did allow him to admit that Bruce might’ve not been what he was had it not been for the butler’s influence. So Mr Pennyworth could live. Besides, Jeremiah didn’t want to hurt Bruce like that, even if that meant he would have to share Bruce’s heart with someone else.

 

Jeremiah hung up the phone call without any goodbyes or thank yous and placed the phone back where he had taken it from. Bruce was tapping his fingers on the wooden surface of the table, waiting for Jeremiah to break in the news, whether or not Alfred Pennyworth was still alive.

 

Jeremiah kept the tension up – it was almost entertaining, the way Bruce pounced his leg up and down, bit and licked his bottom lip, never taking his eyes away from Jeremiah. ”Well? Is he alive?” Bruce asked after a while.

 

”Alive and well, except perhaps emotionally,” Jeremiah hummed. ”Doing everything in his power and beyond to find you. Him and Gordon both.”

 

Bruce let out a relived breath, before hiding his face in his hands. He was almost shaking. Jeremiah thought he might’ve been crying, but dismissed the thought as soon as Bruce sat up again and leaned back in the chair, no longer looking at Jeremiah, but instead turning his head to the right and staring into the distance.

 

Jeremiah didn’t like it when Bruce wasn’t looking at him. Jeremiah was always looking at Bruce, the least the boy could do was do the same.

 

”They can be looking for an eternity, but they won’t find you,” Jeremiah said then, taking a sip of his orange juice. ”Not unless I allow it.”

 

”You seem awfully confident in yourself,” Bruce replied. ”When did that happen? If I understand correctly, Jerome was the more confident one out of the two of you. And even when he was confident in himself, he failed, every time.”

 

”I’ve told you multiple times to stop comparing me to my incompetent brother. The reason why he’s dead and I’m not is because he was unable to finish anything successfully. He was a failure, while I am not,” Jeremiah said, clenching his jaw. ”Now, are we done talking about my brother yet, or is there anything else you’d like to say about him.”

 

Bruce only shook his head as a reply.


	9. 8. Oh! Fuck your feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay I know i said like a month ago that i'll post this chapter in a week, and now it's been longer than that and i'm so sorry! my computer decided to retire early and take everything i've ever written with it because being the dumbass i am, i didn't save this chapter anywhere else except my old laptop. so i had to write it again from the start and i wasn't even sure anymore what i've written so the ending of this chapter is a little clumsy.  
> thank you all so much for your patience and love, i'll do my best to get back on my old updating routine.  
> on the more positive note, ya bitch is going to join jeremiah on that engineering lyfe, although on the chemical side, but still, watch out

**Chapter 8**

 

As bad as life seemed to be for the time being for Bruce, at least Alfred was alive. Just the knowledge that Alfred was still alive and kicking was enough motivation for Bruce to pull through his new life with Jeremiah, far away from the rest of the civilization. Or maybe not far away from them, just under them, where most of them wouldn’t even know to look.

 

Alfred and Jim were looking for him, what a relief. Knowing there was hope, even if the smallest amount was enough for Bruce. He trusted Alfred and Jim – they would find him eventually.

 

But Bruce didn’t know when eventually was. It could take years. Years with no sunlight, no other company except Jeremiah and Ecco, and the latter could hardly be called  _ company _ . There was a good possibility that Bruce would go mad as well, before he was ever found.

 

”Penny for your thoughts?” Jeremiah asked Bruce from where he was sitting, no laying, next to him with a book on his lap. Bruce would have to get used to this – having Jeremiah constantly there, always near, always touching, always breathing down his neck.

 

Bruce was more or less surprised that Jeremiah had bothered to build in a library into the new maze. The previous one didn’t have any proper rooms, except the one where Jeremiah kept all the monitors and the one in which he slept. But Bruce supposed that this new maze wasn’t as much of a maze, but rather designed to be an actual home underground. 

 

_ ”I built in everything to make sure your needs are met.” _ Jeremiah had said when he had first led Bruce into the library.

 

Bruce’s hands were itching to grab a book, just to get his mind off of the present, the reality in which he now lived and to just escape for a while. But he couldn’t let his guard down, not even for a second, not with Jeremiah there. Because with every breath he took, he could feel Jeremiah’s arm pressing into his side with more pressure, because with every shift he made he could feel Jeremiah shift too, closer and closer. Should he not concentrate for a minute or two, the mad man could be all up in his face before he knew it.

 

”Just thinking whether or not to kill myself,” Bruce said with a monotone voice, not bothering to look at Jeremiah. 

 

Of course Bruce hadn’t even considered the thought of a suicide – he wasn’t that selfish. He still had the spark of hope of rescue, and as long as he did, he would be waiting. 

 

But he did want to rile Jeremiah up. He wanted to make him angry, make him snap, make him hurt Bruce, just so Bruce could have the final laugh, so he could prove that Jeremiah was either lying or didn’t know himself as well as Bruce did.

 

Because as much as Jeremiah insisted on not wanting to hurt Bruce, he was doing it with every waking moment. But it seemed that Jeremiah didn’t understand emotional pain, or at least didn’t take it seriously enough, so Bruce was just going to have to get him to hurt him again.

 

”Don’t be silly,” Jeremiah snapped with venom in his voice. ”Like I would ever let you get anywhere near a weapon or let you hurt yourself with it. Besides – you’re not that selfish. You’d never dare do it.”

 

”Says who?”

 

”Says me,” Jeremiah answered, closing the book a little too harshly before throwing it away and glaring at Bruce. ”Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do – make me angry. Angry enough to hurt you, just so you could prove a point. Would that make you happy Bruce? I know you’re a masochist, but I think that’s just taking it a tad too far.”

 

Bruce breathed harshly, trying hard to stay calm. It irritated and unnerved him how well Jeremiah seemed to know him. Every time Bruce felt like he had something, something just for himself to keep, a secret of sorts about himself, Jeremiah came behind his back and snatched it from him, claiming it as his own. It made it hard for Bruce to try to be a step ahead of Jeremiah, when Jeremiah seemed to know Bruce better than he knew Jeremiah.

 

_ Well, you’ve got to give him  _ some _ credit – after all, it seems like only one of you has stalkerish tendencies.  _ Bruce had never been one to talk to himself or have a nonverbal conversation with himself, but it seemed like as of late there had been a voice, awfully and terribly similar to Selina’s voice, giving a comment or two at unwanted times.

 

It hadn’t even been a week and Jeremiah had already managed to make Bruce lose his mind, even if it was just a little bit, even if just a small part of it. 

 

”Maybe I want you angry enough to do the dirty work for me,” Bruce seethed back, gritting his teeth as he matched Jeremiah’s glare. ”It won’t count as a suicide if somebody else does it for you.”

 

The thing was, when Bruce did his best to make Jeremiah angry, he expected to get slapped as a reward. What he didn’t expect, however, was for Jeremiah to lunge at him, making Bruce fall off the couch they were sitting on, and wrap his hands around Bruce’s throat in a tight grip, cutting off all oxygen, not letting even a little bit through. The position was awkward, with Jeremiah’s hand being handcuffed to one of Bruce’s, making Bruce’s arm hang in an uncomfortable position.

 

_ That was easier than expected, didn’t think it would actually work. _ And Bruce really didn’t. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, just so he didn’t have to look into Jeremiah’s, because if the mad man was really going to go through with this, Bruce really didn’t want Jeremiah to be the last thing he saw before he took his last breath.  _ That’s stupid, because if this is how you’re actually going to die, you’ve already taken your last breath, stupid. _

 

The sound of Selina’s voice, even if in the back of his head as a memory or a sign of his growing madness, made Bruce contemplate how much he actually wanted to live. Or how little. There really didn’t seem to be much point anymore, to be completely honest. His parents were long gone, Bruce had come to terms with that years ago. But so many other people had died too, more or less because of Bruce. And not just died, but become completely different people, unrecognizable and only shadow’s of their past selves, like the case with Jeremiah seemed to prove.

 

There had been a lot of horrible, downright traumatizing incidents that no one, especially anyone under the age of at least thirty should go through, and Bruce had somehow pulled through all of them. His parents’ death. Galavan. Jerome, twice. Ra’s a Ghul. Jeremiah. Except it seemed like he really wasn’t going to survive Jeremiah after all. 

 

But… was that such a bad thing? If he were to die now, should he now cross the point of no return, that would mean no more horrible, downright traumatizing incidents couldn’t take place anymore, right? At least not to him. Maybe somebody else was going to have to face them, probably, but didn’t Bruce deserve some rest now? It only seemed fair. If there really was life after death, if there was Heaven and Hell, maybe Bruce had done enough good in his life that he deserved to be with his parents and Selina again. 

 

And then the pressure was gone. Jeremiah’s hands let go, just before Bruce was starting to loose consciousness, just when it felt like he was going to pass the line. Automatically, like a reflex of kind, Bruce took a big gulp of air and started coughing like crazy. Bruce still didn’t open his eyes, but he could feel the weight of Jeremiah sitting on his legs.

 

”Told you,” Bruce said with a weak, hoarse voice after the coughing fit calmed down and his lungs started to fill with air again. He opened his eyes to see Jeremiah nearly shaking with anger over him. ” _ The last thing I want to do is hurt you Bruce. _ ” It was a childish, terrible impression of Jeremiah, nowhere near close how Jeremiah actually sounded like, but damn if it wasn’t funny.

 

”I can hurt you,” Jeremiah said with a low voice, almost a whisper, as though he was trying his best not to loose his cool. ”If that’s what you want.” Jeremiah leaned closer, almost laying on top of Bruce, holding himself up on his elbows. 

 

Bruce could feel Jeremiah’s warm breath on his lips and their noses brushing into each other. Some of Jeremiah’s hair had fallen down to his face and was now tickling the skin on Bruce’s forehead. 

 

”I’ll hurt you if you ask me to,” Jeremiah said, licking his lips and closing his eyes. ”In any way you want to. But I refuse to kill you. You hurt me, I hurt you – You won’t kill me and I won’t kill you.”

 

”Not even if I asked?” Bruce questioned, doing his best not to cringe away from the feeling of Jeremiah’s lips brushing against his cheek.

 

”Especially not if you asked.”

 

* * *

 

Bruce wasn’t sure how many days had gone by, but he had gone to sleep in the same bed with Jeremiah forty times now and woken up with him just as many. There was always the possibility of Bruce sleeping more than once in a day, or less than that. He wasn’t sure anymore – time seemed to blur together when there was no way to measure it. No clocks, no calendars. The concept of time seemed foreign to Bruce now. He had attempted to count seconds at some point, but gave up when he got to five hundred. There really was no point when there was no possible way he could count every second of the day. 

 

Bruce had tried begging Jeremiah for a clock. He had gotten on his knees, he had kissed his feet, hell he had even put his tongue into his mouth and pushed him onto the bed, but there was no convincing Jeremiah when he had made his mind up on something. Bruce wasn’t sure what was so bad about him knowing the time and the date, but maybe that was just a part of Jeremiah’s obvious plan to isolate him from the rest of the world.

 

Life was bland and it was boring. It was filled with sitting in the library with a book opened on a random page, but not a single word had been read. Jeremiah was always sitting next to him, too close for comfort, his and Bruce’s wrists tied together with strong metal. Besides the library there was nothing much to do. There was no television, not that Bruce had been too fond of it to be begin with, but it would’ve been nice to know the news of the outside world ( _ well that would fit into the whole isolation picture, now would it? _ ). 

 

Jeremiah seemed to be happy with the arrangement. He always seemed to be humming a tune of sorts, classical music from what Bruce could gather, figures, a smile rarely reaching his face unless Bruce was directly speaking to him ( _ that’s rare nowadays _ ), but the look on his face seemed… contempt. Occasionally Jeremiah would turn his attention away from whatever he was doing – Bruce didn’t care anymore – and just stare at the side of Bruce’s face a while. Sometimes he would reach out to move a strand of fallen hair out of his face, other times he would lean in to press gentle – way too gentle for a person like him – kisses along Bruce’s face. The corner of his lips, his cheek, his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, any place really that was not covered by clothes. Should Bruce have it his way, he would be only wearing turtlenecks or hoodies, so he could cover most of his body, to stop the invasive lips from touching his skin, but unfortunately Jeremiah seemed to want to be in control of as much as he possibly could, and Bruce’s wardrobe was his favourite one. Most of the clothes were black, some purple, some green, some red, but most were black (”It’s a nice contrast on that milky white skin of yours”). The material varied from silk to satin to basic cotton, which Bruce preferred. Most of the clothing options let Bruce cover his shoulders and his elbows, but his neck was always visible and lately there had been a rather ugly display of bruises (or  _ lovebites _ like Jeremiah liked to call them) littered all around his neck, and thank god the only other person to see them was Ecco and she didn’t seem to care, even if something in her face screamed discomfort every time she glanced at Bruce. But that might’ve been because the last time she had looked at Bruce for longer than five seconds, Jeremiah had started to yell, demanding that she should have better things to do than to ogle at Bruce. 

 

Bruce didn’t know how far along Jeremiah was in his whole ’take over Gotham’ plan, but from what Bruce had gathered, when he actually bothered to pay attention, Jeremiah didn’t look like he was planning or scheming anything. No, rather he was only ever reading a book with Bruce or drawing. The latter one came as a surprise to Bruce – he hadn’t known that Jeremiah was such a talented artist. But that fact didn’t matter actually, because Jeremiah only ever drew one thing, and that was Bruce. Bruce in different rooms, in different clothes, in different position, and Bruce liked to think he had enough ego to never really get tired of the sight of his own face, but by god if he wasn’t sick of seeing it everywhere.

 

Bruce sighed, throwing his head back against the armrest of the couch he was laying on. His legs were more or less comfortably on Jeremiah’s lap, with his shoes off, while Jeremiah seemed to be completely caught up in the book he was reading.

 

Bruce sighed again, but Jeremiah still didn’t avert his eyes from the book in his hands. It was almost amusing how Jeremiah would always give Bruce all the attention in the world, when he least wanted it. 

 

It took a third sigh for Jeremiah to slowly lift his head to give Bruce an amused smile. ”Yes, Bruce?” he asked, folding the corner of the page he was on before closing the book. Bruce pursed his lips at the action, always having hated it when people did that.

 

Bruce shook his head. ”Nothing, just bored is all,” he said, trying to get into a more comfortable position, possibly move his legs off from where they were resting on top of Jeremiah’s thighs, but Jeremiah put his hand on top of them to stop the movement.

 

”And what is it that you want to do then?” Jeremiah asked, putting the book on the coffee table in front of them.

 

”Go outside.”

 

Jeremiah chuckled at Bruce’s words, shaking his head lightly at him. ”That’s cute,” he hummed, sliding his hand up and down Bruce’s leg. ”Is there anything else you’d like to do?”

 

”Go home. See Alfred. See Jim. Not be with you every waking moment of my life,” Bruce said, staring at the ceiling. 

 

Jeremiah hummed in response again, before his hand stopped its previous movement. Instead, Jeremiah’s both hands ( _ Oh for fuck’s sake, his hands are  _ big.) wrapped around Bruce’s thighs ( _ Or maybe you’re thighs are just small _ ) and pulled Bruce to sit on his lap. Bruce let out a loud yelp, both in surprise and as a protest to the movement. Bruce had to place his free hand on Jeremiah’s shoulders in order to keep his balance and not fall backwards and hit his head on the glass table. 

 

The black jacket Jeremiah was wearing was surprisingly nice under his hands, Bruce figured. It occasionally annoyed him how Jeremiah insisted on wearing suits and button up shirts and wests all the damn time, while they literally lived alone underground. There was no one to dress for there. No one to impress, and Bruce just didn’t see the point behind it. 

 

”How about you think of something that doesn’t include going outside,” Jeremiah suggested, placing his own hands on Bruce’s hips, firmly but gentle enough for it to not hurt. At least not too much. 

 

Bruce almost laughed. ”So we’re not even going to try and pretend that you’re not keeping me here trapped?”

 

”Did I ever give you the impression that I was trying to pretend that?” Jeremiah asked, tilting his lightly before leaning in closer to press his face against Bruce’s hair. ”I thought we were both aware of my intentions to make you get Stockholm Syndrome.”

 

Jeremiah laughed after that, a high pitched and an awfully unfamiliar sound. It was nothing like the way Jeremiah laughed when they were alone in his original bunker, slightly deep and quiet, as if he was trying to keep his amusement as a secret but not able to hold back the chuckles. Jeremiah’s laughter now however sounded slightly unhinged and like a more childish and controlled version of Jerome’s infamous laugh.

 

Bruce wanted to hit him. He wanted to hit and slap and kick and bite and beat Jeremiah until he was bloody and bruised, until he knew at least a semblance of the pain Bruce was going through every waking moment he was forced to spend with the mad-man. Unfortunately, Jeremiah would probably get off on the feeling of Bruce letting his anger and frustration out on him, so it was probably for the best to just not give him any sort of pleasure or satisfaction. 

 

”I think this whole thing is just a waste of both of our time,” Bruce sighed then, feeling a slight itch on his hand, where the handcuffs were tightly wrapped around his wrist.

 

”Whatever could you mean by that?” Jeremiah asked, leaning back to look at Bruce with a genuinely curious look on his face.

 

Bruce shrugged. ”I don’t know. I just think that you’d probably already succeeded in taking over Gotham and shaping it into what you want it to be, if you didn’t waste your time concentrating on me,” he said. ”It could take years on years on years for me to finally snap and break. Imagine all the time you could’ve ruled Gotham, but no, you decided it would be better to torture me here. And I too probably have loads of better things to do with my time than sit on my ass all day here.”

 

”You think you’ve made a compelling point, don’t you?” 

 

”I’d like to think so.” Bruce sniffed lightly as he stared into Jeremiah’s eyes. God they were such a disturbing shade of both the lightest grey and green. It was unnatural and overall disgusting thing to look at, especially when Jeremiah looked at him like  _ that _ , with his eyes wide and searching.

 

”Bruce, you really can be so stupid sometimes,” Jeremiah almost whined. ”There’s no point in ruling Gotham if I don’t have you by my side. If I can’t rule with you then there’s just no point in anything. I’m willing to wait – you really don’t want to see what’s going on up there Bruce. It’s almost hell on Earth. Chaos everywhere – a lawless land disowned by the government. At least for the time being that is. And with each passing day the main land becomes less and less enthusiastic to reunite with Gotham. It’s much safer for you to stay here until you’re ready to step in to make the city your own.”

  
  


Bruce smiled bitterly. Leave it to Jeremiah to convince himself that his twisted plans were somehow logical and that he only intended the best for Bruce. “Safe, right,” Bruce said quietly, sniffing slightly. “I can’t wait for the vitamin D deprivation that is waiting for me.”

  
  


Jeremiah had the audacity to laugh at Bruce and make it seem like they were two long time friends just joking around. Maybe in some stupid way it was funny. Bruce almost laughed too.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope everybody enjoyed the prologue and leave some nice feedback! I try to update as often as i can, but sometimes a bitch has some rough time and doesn't want to.  
> k bye


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